David Hoffman of Investment News reports on First Trust Portfolios, which launched their first exchange traded fund in September 2005. Their assets were $124 million as of June 30th, ranking the firm 12th among 13 managers offering ETFs. The eight ETFs they offer are specialized ETFs, such as the First Trust IPOX-100 Index (FPX). The company plans to launch seven more ETFs by the end of the year.
First Trust offers some innovative ETFs, but these can be hard to sell. Investors need to understand them and the ETFs have no track record (since they are not following a traditional index). The firm says the proposed ETFs will be better designed to fit into core categories of a portfolio.
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