Читать книгу The Institutional ETF Toolbox - Balchunas Eric - Страница 8

They say that as a customer you can only get two of these three things: fast/good/cheap. If it’s fast and good, it isn’t cheap. If it is good and cheap, it isn’t fast. And if it’s cheap and fast, well, it probably isn’t that good.

Turns out, I have found two things that prove this wrong: Vietnamese restaurants and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Those are two times when fast, good, and cheap all tend to exist in wonderful harmony.

How this can happen requires a bit of background into what an ETF is.

Essentially, an ETF is the marriage of an index fund (passively managed with low-costs and diversification) with the trading features of a stock (intraday trading, price transparency). That is how most people know them. And that is true on a base level. But that is only half the story. Thanks to the ingenious way ETF shares are created and redeemed – something we will explore in Chapter 3 – an ETF has additional qualities that make it rise above the blunt definition of “a fund that trades.” I tend to agree with some in the industry who have called ETFs a “disruptive technology.”

As an analyst who has covered everything from mutual funds to hedge funds to closed-end funds, I have been amazed at the sheer number of advantages that ETFs offer up. They take many evolutionary steps forward and as such are fast becoming the investment vehicle for the twenty-first century.

The best way to support this lofty description is to just dive into the advantages. These are the things that make them fast, good, and cheap. This isn’t to say they are perfect. And there are many things you need to watch out for – which we will go over throughout the book – but they – like other great technologies – offer up several benefits in one shot that can make life easier.