The exchange traded fund universe continues to expand, with many new options coming to market in the past year.
Seven ETF pundits came together for a panel on Monday, The Best New ETF of 2017: We Present, You Decide, at the Inside ETFs conference, to debate their favorite new ETF of the past year.
The winner was Matt Hougan, CEO Inside ETFs, who highlighted the USCF SummerHaven SHPEI Index Fund (NYSEArca: BUY). BUY tries to reflect the performance of the SummerHaven Private Equity Strategy Index, which attempts to replicate the long-term return characteristics of diversified private equity allocations. The fund utilizes a proprietary methodology that focuses on companies with low enterprise value to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization ratios; low net equity issuance; low market capitalization; and moderate profitability.
Eric Balchunas, ETF Analyst Bloomberg Intelligence, selected the iShares Edge Investment Grade Enhanced Bond ETF (Cboe: IGEB) as his favorite pick of 2017. The Edge Investment Grade Enhanced Bond ETF tries to reflect the performance of the BlackRock Investment Grade Enhanced Bond Index, which is comprised of investment-grade corporate debt and screens out debt with the highest probability of default and then optimizes to improve risk-adjusted returns by weighting more heavily toward bonds with attractive default-adjusted spreads.
Ben Johnson, Director of Global ETF & Passive Strategies Morningstar, saw opportunity in the newly launched Vanguard Total Corporate Bond ETF (NasdaqGM: VTC). The Total Corporate Bond ETF acts like a fund-of-funds and will try to reflect the performance of the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Corporate Bond Index, which includes investment-grade, fixed-rate, taxable corporate bonds issued by industrial, utility and financial issuers.