Latest news with #Proshares
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Is ProShares Russell 2000 Dividend Growers ETF (SMDV) a Strong ETF Right Now?
A smart beta exchange traded fund, the ProShares Russell 2000 Dividend Growers ETF (SMDV) debuted on 02/03/2015, and offers broad exposure to the Style Box - Small Cap Value category of the market. The ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on market capitalization weighted indexes that are designed to represent the market or a particular segment of the market. Because market cap weighted indexes provide a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns, they work well for investors who believe in market efficiency. But, there are some investors who would rather invest in smart beta funds; these funds track non-cap weighted strategies, and are a strong option for those who prefer choosing great stocks in order to beat the market. This kind of index follows this same mindset, as it attempts to pick stocks that have better chances of risk-return performance; non-cap weighted strategies base selection on certain fundamental characteristics, or a mix of such characteristics. While this space offers a number of choices to investors, including simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies, not all these strategies have been able to deliver superior results. The fund is managed by Proshares, and has been able to amass over $644.04 million, which makes it one of the average sized ETFs in the Style Box - Small Cap Value. SMDV, before fees and expenses, seeks to match the performance of the Russell 2000 Dividend Growth Index. The Russell 2000 Dividend Growth Index targets companies that are currently members of the Russell 2000 Index and have increased dividend payments each year for at least 10 years. Expense ratios are an important factor in the return of an ETF and in the long-term, cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive cousins, other things remaining the same. Annual operating expenses for SMDV are 0.40%, which makes it on par with most peer products in the space. It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 2.96%. It is important to delve into an ETF's holdings before investing despite the many upsides to these kinds of funds like diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis. This ETF has heaviest allocation in the Financials sector - about 31% of the portfolio. Industrials and Utilities round out the top three. When you look at individual holdings, Caretrust Reit Inc (CTRE) accounts for about 1.21% of the fund's total assets, followed by Txnm Energy Inc (TXNM) and Badger Meter Inc (BMI). Its top 10 holdings account for approximately 10.44% of SMDV's total assets under management. Year-to-date, the ProShares Russell 2000 Dividend Growers ETF has lost about -5.11% so far, and is up roughly 3.38% over the last 12 months (as of 06/03/2025). SMDV has traded between $58.95 and $75.88 in this past 52-week period. SMDV has a beta of 0.83 and standard deviation of 19.74% for the trailing three-year period, which makes the fund a medium risk choice in the space. With about 99 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk. ProShares Russell 2000 Dividend Growers ETF is an excellent option for investors seeking to outperform the Style Box - Small Cap Value segment of the market. There are other ETFs in the space which investors could consider as well. IShares Core Dividend Growth ETF (DGRO) tracks Morningstar US Dividend Growth Index and the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG) tracks NASDAQ US Dividend Achievers Select Index. IShares Core Dividend Growth ETF has $31.06 billion in assets, Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF has $89.67 billion. DGRO has an expense ratio of 0.08% and VIG charges 0.05%. Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Style Box - Small Cap Value. To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report ProShares Russell 2000 Dividend Growers ETF (SMDV): ETF Research Reports Badger Meter, Inc. (BMI) : Free Stock Analysis Report CareTrust REIT, Inc. (CTRE) : Free Stock Analysis Report Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG): ETF Research Reports iShares Core Dividend Growth ETF (DGRO): ETF Research Reports TXNM Energy, Inc. (TXNM) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Is ProShares S&P MidCap 400 Dividend Aristocrats ETF (REGL) a Strong ETF Right Now?
Designed to provide broad exposure to the Style Box - Mid Cap Value category of the market, the ProShares S&P MidCap 400 Dividend Aristocrats ETF (REGL) is a smart beta exchange traded fund launched on 02/03/2015. Market cap weighted indexes were created to reflect the market, or a specific segment of the market, and the ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on this strategy. Investors who believe in market efficiency should consider market cap indexes, as they replicate market returns in a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way. If you're the kind of investor who would rather try and beat the market through good stock selection, then smart beta funds are your best choice; this fund class is known for tracking non-cap weighted strategies. These indexes attempt to select stocks that have better chances of risk-return performance, based on certain fundamental characteristics or a combination of such characteristics. While this space offers a number of choices to investors, including simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies, not all these strategies have been able to deliver superior results. The fund is managed by Proshares. REGL has been able to amass assets over $1.77 billion, making it one of the average sized ETFs in the Style Box - Mid Cap Value. Before fees and expenses, this particular fund seeks to match the performance of the S&P MidCap 400 Dividend Aristocrats Index. The S&P MidCap 400 Dividend Aristocrats Index targets companies that are currently members of the S&P MidCap 400 Index and have increased dividend payments each year for at least 15 years. When considering an ETF's total return, expense ratios are an important factor. And, cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive cousins in the long term if all other factors remain equal. With one of the more expensive products in the space, this ETF has annual operating expenses of 0.40%. The fund has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 2.52%. Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure which minimizes single stock risk, it is still important to look into a fund's holdings before investing. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis. This ETF has heaviest allocation in the Financials sector - about 30.90% of the portfolio. Industrials and Utilities round out the top three. Taking into account individual holdings, Evercore Inc - A (EVR) accounts for about 2.09% of the fund's total assets, followed by Sei Investments Company (SEIC) and Cullen/frost Bankers Inc (CFR). The top 10 holdings account for about 17.92% of total assets under management. So far this year, REGL has added about 1.12%, and was up about 11.49% in the last one year (as of 06/02/2025). During this past 52-week period, the fund has traded between $72.52 and $88.79. The ETF has a beta of 0.80 and standard deviation of 16.82% for the trailing three-year period, making it a medium risk choice in the space. With about 54 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk. ProShares S&P MidCap 400 Dividend Aristocrats ETF is a reasonable option for investors seeking to outperform the Style Box - Mid Cap Value segment of the market. However, there are other ETFs in the space which investors could consider. IShares Core Dividend Growth ETF (DGRO) tracks Morningstar US Dividend Growth Index and the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG) tracks NASDAQ US Dividend Achievers Select Index. IShares Core Dividend Growth ETF has $31.06 billion in assets, Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF has $89.57 billion. DGRO has an expense ratio of 0.08% and VIG charges 0.05%. Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Style Box - Mid Cap Value. To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report ProShares S&P MidCap 400 Dividend Aristocrats ETF (REGL): ETF Research Reports Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. (CFR) : Free Stock Analysis Report Evercore Inc (EVR) : Free Stock Analysis Report SEI Investments Company (SEIC) : Free Stock Analysis Report Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG): ETF Research Reports iShares Core Dividend Growth ETF (DGRO): ETF Research Reports This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
18-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The Best Ways To Profit From, And Safeguard Against, Market Volatility
In a year when the stock market has primarily been driven by the whims of President Donald Trump's tariff policies and social media posts, it's even harder than usual to forecast whether the market will move up or down in the next week, or even a year where the stock market has primarily been driven by the whims of President Donald Trump's tariff policies and social media posts, it's even harder than usual to forecast whether the market will move up or down in the next week, or even day. The S&P 500 index crashed 10% in a two-day span after Trump's already infamous press conference announcing his 'Liberation Day' reciprocal tariffs on 90 countries on April 2, then rallied 9.5% a week later when he backtracked on most of them. The index is still down 14% from its record high in February and 10% year-to-date. The Chicago Board Options Exchange's Volatility Index, known as the VIX, measures the expected forward-looking volatility of the S&P 500 and is currently at a historically high level of 30. That effectively means that traders expect the S&P 500 to move 30% in either direction in the next 12 months—a value less than 20 would be typical in a more normal, stable environment. Last week, before Trump announced the pause in tariffs, the VIX spiked above 50 for only the third time in the last 20 years, joining the October through December 2008 Financial Crisis levels and the onset of the global pandemic in March 2020. All of these spikes have corresponded with market crashes, branding the VIX as a fear gauge. For lucky passive investors, with iron constitutions, the previous instances have turned out to be great opportunities to simply buy stocks. But for more advanced market players typically use options to hedge their bets, there are VIX-focused funds that could be attractive short-term options. There is no way to invest directly in the CBOE's VIX, but Bethesda, Maryland asset manager Proshares offers an exchange traded fund known as the VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (VIXY), which buys short-term call options on the VIX. It is up 44% since April 2. Proshares also offers the Short VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (SXVY) which shorts the VIX, betting that volatility will go down. Because the VIX and the stock market generally move in opposite directions, though not always, VIXY tends to behave similarly to an S&P 500 put option, betting the market will fall, and SXVY behaves similarly to the inverse, a call option betting that stocks will rise. 'When the VIX does what it just did, buying options is two to four times more expensive. All of a sudden, those of us who like to buy puts and calls on major indexes are now fighting with one hand behind our back,' says Rob Isbitts, the founder of Sungarden Investment Publishing, describing how the VIX is derived from the prices of S&P 500 options—a VIX of 30 means options are double the price of when the VIX is 15.. 'Maybe 5% or 10% of the time over the next several years, I would use VIXY and SVXY, but this is one of those times.' Proshares puts a disclaimer on both of these ETFs that they're intended for short-term use and investors should monitor their investments as frequently as daily, and there's good reason for that. The VIX moves so jaggedly that any profits can be short-lived, and over the long-term, most of these options will expire out of the money and losses are all but guaranteed. For investors wanting to smooth out stocks' rockiness in a single fund, some firms blend volatility protection with a more diversified portfolio of stocks. Chicago-based Equity Armor Investments manages $171 million in assets in funds like its Rational Equity Armor Fund (HDCAX), which invests primarily in dividend-paying companies in the S&P 500 and also invests up to 20% of its assets in VIX futures contracts. It has a model to determine which options are cheap or expensive and avoid the natural decay associated with rolling VIX options, says co-portfolio manager and chief trading officer Joe Tigay. He portrays the fund as an alternative to balanced 60/40 portfolios, now that bonds haven't acted as a hedge on stock exposure this year the way they often have in the past. Tigay says the fund typically has about 15% of its assets in its volatility strategy and 85% in stocks, and that can vary depending on the market. When the VIX spikes, the fund can move some of its profits from those options into stocks to smooth out the return, and when stocks rise, VIX futures in turn get cheaper. That helped make its maximum drawdown in 2020 a 15% loss, when the S&P 500 crashed 34%. Its five-year annualized return of 7.1% underperforms the S&P 500's 14% mark, but beats the Morningstar Moderately Conservative risk index it benchmarks to by three percentage points. So far in 2025, it's down 4.8%. 'When there's a lot of volatility, it's not scary, it's actionable, and it allows us to maneuver in the market,' says Tigay. 'It's a built-in sell-high, buy-low strategy.' Plenty of funds also offer covered call strategies which cap upside by selling out of the money call options on an index but offer a buffer against declines by distributing income from these options. The largest is JPMorgan's Equity Premium Income ETF, which has $37 billion in assets and offers an 8.2% yield. But Isbitts cautions that those haven't been tested in prolonged bear markets and prefers buying put options directly for protection against individual stock holdings. 'What good is getting the income if you're effectively paying yourself with stock losses,' says Isbitts. 'If we have an extended bear market, covered call ETFs will be remembered as the investment that everybody loved because they did not realize what could possibly go wrong.'
