What is the return rate for ETFs?
ETFs can be a great investment for long-term investors and those with shorter-term time horizons. They can be especially valuable to beginning investors. That's because they won't require the time, effort, and experience needed to research individual stocks.
ETFs can be a great investment for long-term investors and those with shorter-term time horizons. They can be especially valuable to beginning investors. That's because they won't require the time, effort, and experience needed to research individual stocks.
- 10-year return: 24.37%
- Assets under management: $10.9B.
- Expense ratio: 0.35%
- As of date: November 30, 2023.
As of the end of December 2022, total ETF assets under management (AUM) have reached $6.7 trillion across the US and Europe, growing at approximately 15% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) since 2010.
| Period | Average annualised return | Total return |
|---|---|---|
| Last year | 30.7% | 30.7% |
| Last 5 years | 15.9% | 109.5% |
| Last 10 years | 15.7% | 331.4% |
| Last 20 years | 10.8% | 682.2% |
For instance, some ETFs may come with fees, others might stray from the value of the underlying asset, ETFs are not always optimized for taxes, and of course — like any investment — ETFs also come with risk.
Nearly all leveraged ETFs come with a prominent warning in their prospectus: they are not designed for long-term holding. The combination of leverage, market volatility, and an unfavorable sequence of returns can lead to disastrous outcomes.
| Symbol | Name | 5-Year Return |
|---|---|---|
| URA | Global X Uranium ETF | 22.07% |
| XLK | Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund | 21.64% |
| IYW | iShares U.S. Technology ETF | 21.33% |
| XHB | SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF | 20.84% |
- iShares MSCI Turkey ETF (ticker: TUR)
- WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund (DXJ)
- Simplify Interest Rate Hedge ETF (PFIX)
- VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH)
- Amplify U.S. Alternative Harvest ETF (MJUS)
- AdvisorShares Pure U.S. Cannabis ETF (MSOS)
- YieldMax NVDA Option Income Strategy ETF (NVDY)
| Symbol | Name | Dividend Yield |
|---|---|---|
| TIME | Clockwise Core Equity & Innovation ETF | 17.63% |
| BITO | ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF | 17.29% |
| SVOL | Simplify Volatility Premium ETF | 16.69% |
| ULTY | YieldMax Ultra Option Income Strategy ETF | 16.55% |
What if I invested $1000 in S&P 500 10 years ago?
According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in February 2014 would be worth $5,971.20, or a gain of 497.12%, as of February 5, 2024, and this return excludes dividends but includes price increases. Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 178.17% and gold's return of 55.50% over the same time frame.
In 1980, had you invested a mere $1,000 in what went on to become the top-performing stock of S&P 500, then you would be sitting on a cool $1.2 million today.
If you own shares of an exchange-traded fund (ETF), you may receive distributions in the form of dividends. These may be paid monthly or at some other interval, depending on the ETF.
- High-yield savings accounts.
- Money market funds.
- Short-term certificates of deposit.
- Series I savings bonds.
- Treasury bills, notes, bonds and TIPS.
- Corporate bonds.
- Dividend-paying stocks.
- Preferred stocks.
SPY, VOO and IVV are among the most popular S&P 500 ETFs. These three S&P 500 ETFs are quite similar, but may sometimes diverge in terms of costs or daily returns. Investors generally only need one S&P 500 ETF.
One of the ways that investors make money from exchange traded funds (ETFs) is through dividends that are paid to the ETF issuer and then paid on to their investors in proportion to the number of shares each holds.
Leveraged ETF prices tend to decay over time, and triple leverage will tend to decay at a faster rate than 2x leverage. As a result, they can tend toward zero.
Market risk
The single biggest risk in ETFs is market risk. Like a mutual fund or a closed-end fund, ETFs are only an investment vehicle—a wrapper for their underlying investment. So if you buy an S&P 500 ETF and the S&P 500 goes down 50%, nothing about how cheap, tax efficient, or transparent an ETF is will help you.
Low Liquidity
If an ETF is thinly traded, there can be problems getting out of the investment, depending on the size of your position relative to the average trading volume. The biggest sign of an illiquid investment is large spreads between the bid and the ask.
The top reasons for closing an ETF are a lack of investor interest and a limited amount of assets. For example, investors may avoid an ETF because it is too narrowly-focused, too complex, too costly, or has a poor return on investment.
Is it better to hold mutual funds or ETFs?
The choice comes down to what you value most. If you prefer the flexibility of trading intraday and favor lower expense ratios in most instances, go with ETFs. If you worry about the impact of commissions and spreads, go with mutual funds.
Stock-picking offers an advantage over exchange-traded funds (ETFs) when there is a wide dispersion of returns from the mean. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) offer advantages over stocks when the return from stocks in the sector has a narrow dispersion around the mean.
Experts agree that for most personal investors, a portfolio comprising 5 to 10 ETFs is perfect in terms of diversification.
| Ticker | Fund name | 5-year return |
|---|---|---|
| SOXX | iShares Semiconductor ETF | 30.70% |
| XLK | Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund | 24.57% |
| IYW | iShares U.S. Technology ETF | 24.09% |
| FTEC | Fidelity MSCI Information Technology Index ETF | 22.79% |
These ETFs can hold income-generating assets, such as dividend stocks, preferred shares, corporate bonds, real estate investment trusts (REITs) and master limited partnerships (MLPs). They offer the advantage of monthly yields, which may be further enhanced by the use of options such as covered calls.
