What You Should Know:
- Van Eck Global’s Market Vectors sponsors the fund.
- MORT has an expense ratio of 0.40%.
- The fund has 25 holdings and the top 10 make up 73.4% of the overall portfolio.
- Market capitalization allocations include: large-cap 35.1%, mid-cap 39.9% and small-cap 25.0%.
- The ETF has 12.09% 30-day SEC yield.
- The fund is up 5.5% over the last month, up 8.4% over the past three months and up 22.3% year-to-date.
- MORT is 6.7% above its 200-day exponential moving average.
- Real estate investment trusts are exempt from corporate taxes if they distribute at least 90% of income to share holders.
- Distributions are not qualified ad are taxed as ordinary income.
- “This ETF’s portfolio is composed of mortgage REITs, which are firms that seek to benefit from the spread between short-term and long-term rates by using very short-term debt such as repurchase agreements to fund purchases of residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities,” according to Morningstar analyst Patricia Oey.
- “At this time, mortgage REITs are benefiting from historically low short-term rates,” Oey added. “Given that the underlying investments in this ETF are mortgage-backed securities, investors in this ETF are exposed to credit risk and prepayment risk.”
The Latest News:
- Mortgage-backed REITs are benefiting from the low, stable interest rate environment, at least through 2014.
- The spread between the 2-year Treasury and 10-year Treasury bonds of around 125 basis points and 200 basis points help make REITs an attractive option.
- The 30-year fixed-rate average hit a historic low 3.49%, compared to the average 4.55% last year.
- “Market concerns over the strength of the economic recovery brought long-term Treasury yields to new lows this week allowing fixed mortgage rates to reach record levels,” Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist, said in a Washington Post article.
Market Vectors Mortgage REIT Income ETF
For past stories in this series, visit our ETF Spotlight category.
Max Chen contributed to this article.