Exchange-traded fund

An exchange-traded fund () is a type of  fund and exchange-traded product, i.e. they are traded on  exchanges.

ETFs are similar in many ways to mutual funds, except that ETFs are bought and sold from other owners throughout the day on  exchanges while mutual funds are bought and sold from the issuer based on their price at day's end.

An holds assets such as stocks, currencies, futures contracts, and/or commodities such as  bars, and generally operates with an arbitrage mechanism designed to keep it trading close to its net asset value, although deviations can occasionally occur.

Most ETFs are index funds: that is, they hold the same in the same proportions as a certain  market index or bond market index.

The most popular ETFs in the U.S. replicate the S&P 500 Index, the total market index, the -100 index, the price of , the “growth” stocks in the Russell 1000 Index, or the index of the largest companies.

With the exception of non-transparent actively managed ETFs, in most cases, the list of stocks that each owns, as well as their weightings, is posted daily on the of the issuer.

The largest ETFs have of 0.03% of the amount invested, or even lower, although specialty ETFs can have well in excess of 1% of the amount invested.

These are paid to the issuer out of dividends received from the underlying holdings or from selling assets.

Last Updated on 2 years by pinc