Comments on: What’s the Difference Between Exchange-Traded Notes and Exchange-Traded Funds?

By: ETN Center

ETN Center — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:55:10 +0000

If you are looking for a list of all ETNs, you can find it at http://www.ETNCenter.com

By: Laura Shelting

Laura Shelting — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:25:42 +0000

Merrill Lynch now also offers exchange traded notes, see http://www.elementsetn.com for their prospectus.

By: Simon Perez

Simon Perez — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 13:40:00 +0000

Please email me the tickers for rhe new Barclays iPath ETNs that have Currencies in them or others like Precious Metals. Thank You. Phone 916-224-1350

By: Bill Spaulding

Bill Spaulding — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 22:21:02 +0000

I believe the main tax advantage is that there will be no taxable events until you sell the security, or you wait until it matures–that’s if the IRS accepts this. Barclay’s lawyers seem to think so. Although ETFs do have some taxable events, they are few, and so, this probably isn’t much of an advantage.
However, commodity ETFs have more tax events than other ETFs because the contracts have to be continually rolled over into longer term contracts, and so there could be capital gains.
And, of course, this is good publicity for Barclay’s.

By: Mike Williams

Mike Williams — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 23:58:16 +0000

Why would anyone want to buy the iPath ETNs?? There ARE commodity ETFs that already exist (oil, gold), and I believe Lyxor (or some other fund company) has a European-listed ETF that tracks Goldman’s Commodity Index or CRB or whatever.

This iPath product is full of questionable and undesirable attributes. Firstly, taxation is unclear – will these qualify as capital gains?. Secondly, the ETNs introduce issuer risk (ie. if Barclays goes bankrupt investors would be unsecured creditors and could get pennies on the dollar). OTOH, ETFs are protected by the Investment Company Act of 1940, which requires segregation of fund assets from those of the managing company, hence if the managing company goes bankrupt, the underlying fund assets are protected as are thus the interest of fundholders. And lastly, who the heck would want to pay the management fee of 75bps for this fund?!…seems very expensive compared to most ETFs.

Methinks Barclays is getting very greedy and wants to hose unsuspecting retail investors.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:38:26 +0000

Commodities have a near perfect correlation with stocks? Really? This site (http://www.investopedia.com/articles/trading/05/021605.asp) seems to suggest -0.2. Hardly perfect!