Is it correct to call an exchange-traded note a type of ETF?
They're exchange traded debt, basically, not funds. E.g. from the NYSE: An exchange-traded note (ETN) is a senior unsecured debt obligation designed to track the total return of an underlying market index or other benchmark, minus investor fees. Whereas an ETF, in some way or another, is an equity product - which doesn't mean that they can only expose you to equity, but that they themselves are a company that you buy shares in.  FCOR for example is a bond ETF, basically a company whose sole purpose is to own a basket of bonds.  Contrast that to DTYS, a bear Treasury ETN, which is described as  The ETNs are unsecured debt obligations of the issuer, Barclays Bank PLC, and are not, either directly or indirectly, an obligation of or guaranteed by any third party. Also from Barclays site: Because the iPath ETNs are debt securities, they do not have any voting rights. FCOR on the other hand is some sort of company owned/managed by a Fidelity trust, though my EDGAR skills are rusty. AGREEMENT made this 18th day of   September, 2014, by and between Fidelity Merrimack Street Trust, a Massachusetts business trust which may issue one or more series of shares of beneficial interest (hereinafter called the Trust), on behalf of Fidelity Corporate   Bond ETF (hereinafter called the Fund), and Fidelity Investments Money Management, Inc., a New Hampshire corporation (hereinafter called the Adviser) as set forth in its entirety below.
"Bonds might not be simple, but in general there are only a few variables that need to be understood: bid, coupon (interest) rate, maturity, and yield.  Bond tables clearly lay those out, and if you're talking about government bonds a lot of things (like convertibles) don't apply (although default is still a concern). This might be overly simplistic, but I view ETF's primarily as an easy way to bring somewhat esoteric instruments (like grain futures) into the easily available markets of Nasdaq and the NYSE. That they got ""enhanced"" with leveraged funds and the such is interesting, but perhaps not the original intent of the instrument.  Complicating your situation a bit more is the fee that gets tacked onto the ETF. Even Vanguard government bond funds hang out north of 0.1%. That's not huge, but it's not particularly appealing either considering that (unlike rounding up live cattle futures), it's not that much work to buy US government bonds, so the expense might not seem worth it to someone who's comfortable purchasing the securities directly.  I'd be interested to see someone else's view on this, but in general I'd say that if you know what you want and know how to buy it, the government bond ETF becomes a lot less relevant as the liquidity offered (including the actual ""ease of transacting"") seem to to be the biggest factors in favor. From Investopedia's description: The bond ETF is an exciting new addition to the bond market, offering   an excellent alternative to self-directed investors who, looking for   ease of trading and increased price transparency, want to practice   indexing or active bond trading. However, bond ETFs are suitable for   particular strategies. If, for instance, you are looking to create a   specific income stream, bond ETFs may not be for you. Be sure to   compare your alternatives before investing." Wikipedia has a fairly detailed explanation of ETFs.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange-traded_fund "I'm assuming the question is about how to compare two ETFs that track the same index. I'd look at (for ETFs -- ignoring index funds): So, for example you might compare SPY vs IVV: SPY has about 100x the volume. Sure, IVV has 2M shares trading, so it is liquid ""enough"". But the bigger volume on SPY might matter to you if you use options: open interest is as much as 1000x more on SPY. Even if you have no interest in options, the spreads on SPY are probably going to be slightly smaller. They both have 0.09% expense ratios. When I looked on 2010-9-6, SPY was trading at a slight discount, IVV was at a slight premium. Looking for any sort of trend is left as an exercise to the reader... Grab the prospectus for each to examine the rules they set for fund makeup. Both come from well-known issuers and have a decent history. (Rather than crazy Uncle Ed's pawn shop, or the Central Bank of Stilumunistan.) So unless you find something in the SPY prospectus that makes you queasy, the higher volume and equal expense ratios would seem to suggest it over IVV. The fact that it is at a (tiny) discount right now is a (tiny) bonus." "This article fails to explain that paper gold doesn't ""necessarily"" guarantee the owner to physical gold.  An index fund tracking the price of gold per ounce guarantees the owner the market value of gold at the termination of the contract.  This keeps markets liquid, and allows investors to diversify into precious metals without the inconvenience of storage and delivery fees.  As long as we are using currency that can be exchanged for gold this shouldn't pose a problem.  If we move to a post currency world of barter and trade, you're better invested in weapons and ammunition." "BestInvest is a UK site looking at that URL, base on the ""co.uk"" ending. Yahoo! Finance that you use is a US-based site unless you add something else to the URL. UK & Ireland Yahoo! Finance is different from where you were as there is something to be said for where are you looking. If I was looking for a quarter dollar there are Canadian and American coins that meet this so there is something to be said for a higher level of categorization being done. ""EUN.L"" would likely denote the ""London"" exchange as tickers are exchange-specific you do realize, right?" It depends on what site you're looking on and what exchange they're pulling the data from. Even though funds and stocks are called the same thing, they have different ticker symbols in each country's exchange or could be traded as pink sheet stocks in the US. If a company or fund is based in another country (like Canada or the UK) they probably also trade on that country's exchange (Toronto or London) under a different symbol. This can cause a lot of confusion when researching these tickers. "An ETF does not track any one individual stock. It ""is a marketable security that tracks an index, a commodity, bonds, or a basket of assets like an index fund."" Check out this link to learn more about ETFs. The easiest way see what ETF tracks a stock is to determine what sector and industry that company is in and find some ETF that trade it. The ETF will likely trade that stock, assuming that its market cap and exchange it trades on fits within the parameters of the ETF." "Your question is one of semantics.  ETFs and mutual funds have many things in common and provide essentially the same service to investors with minimal differences.  It's reasonably correct to say ""An ETF is a mutual fund that..."" and then follow up with some stuff that is not true of a typical mutual fund.  You could do the same with, for example, a hedge fund.  ""A hedge fund is a mutual fund that doesn't comply with most SEC regulations and thus is limited to accredited investors."" As a matter of practice, when people say ""mutual fund"" they are talking about traditional mutual funds and pretty much never including ETFs.  So is an ETF a mutual fund as the word is commonly used?  No." I'm not a professional, but my understanding is that US funds are not considered PFICs regardless of the fact that they are held in a foreign brokerage account. In addition, be aware that foreign stocks are not considered PFICs (although foreign ETFs may be). Yes, it would be incorrect to refer to BATS Chi-X Europe as a market maker. Market makers make markets on BATS Chi-X Europe, which is a stock exchange. PST, or any of the Ultra Short/Long funds aren't actually holding any traditional securities -- just swaps that are betting on the underlying asset. They also don't track the value of the underlying security over time -- just for one day. (And they're not even guaranteed to do that!) IEF is an actual treasury bond fund that holds real-life treasury securities, not swaps. Shorting a fund like IEF is one option, another is to buy options on a fund like IEF. Be very careful investing with ETFs, and don't buy any until you fully read and understand the prospectus. I got burned by an Ultra Long ETF because I didn't do my homework. "An Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) is a special type of mutual fund that is traded on the stock exchange like a stock.  To invest, you buy it through a stock broker, just as you would if you were buying an individual stock. When looking at a mutual fund based in the U.S., the easiest way to tell whether or not it is an ETF is by looking at the ticker symbol.  Traditional mutual funds have ticker symbols that end in ""X"", and ETFs have ticker symbols that do not end in ""X"".   The JPMorgan Emerging Markets Equity Fund, with ticker symbol JFAMX, is a traditional mutual fund, not an ETF.  JPMorgan does have ETFs; the JPMorgan Diversified Return Emerging Markets Equity ETF, with ticker symbol JPEM, is an example.  This ETF invests in similar stocks as JFAMX; however, because it is an index-based fund instead of an actively managed fund, it has lower fees. If you aren't sure about the ticker symbol, the advertising/prospectus of any ETF should clearly state that it is an ETF.  (In the example of JPEM above, they put ""ETF"" right in the fund name.)  If you don't see ETF mentioned, it is most likely a traditional mutual fund. Another way to tell is by looking at the ""investment minimums"" of the fund.  JFAMX has a minimum initial investment of $1000.  ETFs, however, do not have an investment minimum listed; because it is traded like a stock, you simply buy whole shares at whatever the current share price is.  So if you look at the ""Fees and Investment Minimums"" section of the JPEM page, you'll see the fees listed, but not any investment minimums." E&amp;P can be valid throug Net Present Value methods, on a field-by-field basis. As no field is ever-lasting, and there Are not an unlimited number of fields, perpetuity-formulaes Are shitty.  FCFF on a per-field basis with WC and Capex, with a definite lifetime.  Thank you for the compliment. No ETN or ETF yet. There are beta funds, that aim to track the market.  What's really needed is a liquid market for cat risk trading/transfer, enabling users to buy protection, or take the other side.  You can write cat swaps, so derivative forms, including ILW's or with parametric triggers. But these aren't liquid at all yet.  Cat bonds are most liquid, but it dries up pretty quickly when events threaten as there's no true hedging market yet. Bond ETFs are just another way to buy a bond mutual fund.  An ETF lets you trade mutual fund shares the way you trade stocks, in small share-size increments.  The content of this answer applies equally to both stock and bond funds. If you are intending to buy and hold these securities, your main concerns should be purchase fees and expense ratios.  Different brokerages will charge you different amounts to purchase these securities.  Some brokerages have their own mutual funds for which they charge no trading fees, but they charge trading fees for ETFs.  Brokerage A will let you buy Brokerage A's mutual funds for no trading fee but will charge a fee if you purchase Brokerage B's mutual fund in your Brokerage A account. Some brokerages have multiple classes of the same mutual fund.  For example, Vanguard for many of its mutual funds has an Investor class (minimum $3,000 initial investment), Admiral class (minimum $10,000 initial investment), and an ETF (share price as initial investment).  Investor class has the highest expense ratio (ER).  Admiral class and the ETF generally have much lower ER, usually the same number.  For example, Vanguard's Total Bond Market Index mutual fund has Investor class (symbol VBMFX) with 0.16% ER, Admiral (symbol VBTLX) with 0.06% ER, and ETF (symbol BND) with 0.06% ER (same as Admiral).  See Vanguard ETF/mutual fund comparison page.  Note that you can initially buy Investor class shares with Vanguard and Vanguard will automatically convert them to the lower-ER Admiral class shares when your investment has grown to the Admiral threshold. Choosing your broker and your funds may end up being more important than choosing the form of mutual fund versus ETF.  Some brokers charge very high purchase/redemption fees for mutual funds.  Many brokers have no ETFs that they will trade for free.  Between funds, index funds are passively managed and are just designed to track a certain index; they have lower ERs.  Actively managed funds are run by managers who try to beat the market; they have higher ERs and tend to actually fall below the performance of index funds, a double whammy. See also Vanguard's explanation of mutual funds vs. ETFs at Vanguard. See also Investopedia's explanation of mutual funds vs. ETFs in general.