Exchange rate $ ETF,s
Your assumption that funds sold in GBP trade in GBP is incorrect. In general funds purchase their constituent stocks in the fund currency which may be different to the subscription currency. Where the subscription currency is different from the fund currency subscriptions are converted into the fund currency before the extra money is used to increase holdings. An ETF, on the other hand, does not take subscriptions directly but by creation (and redemption) of shares. The principle is the same however; monies received from creation of ETF shares are converted into the fund currency and then used to buy stock. This ensures that only one currency transaction is done. In your specific example the fund currency will be USD so your purchase of the shares (assuming there are no sellers and creation occurs) will be converted from GBP to USD and held in that currency in the fund. The fund then trades entirely in USD to avoid currency risk. When you want to sell your exposure (supposing redemption occurs) enough holdings required to redeem your money are sold to get cash in USD and then converted to GBP before paying you. This means that trading activity where there is no need to convert to GBP (or any other currency) does not incur currency conversion costs. In practice funds will always have some cash (or cash equivalents) on hand to pay out redemptions and will have an idea of the number and size of redemptions each calendar period so will use futures and swaps to mitigate FX risk. Where the same firm has two funds traded in different currencies with the same objectives it is likely that one is a wrapper for the other such that one simply converts the currency and buys the other currency denominated ETF. As these are exchange traded funds with a price in GBP the amount you pay for the ETF or gain on selling it is the price given and you will not have to consider currency exchange as that should be done internally as explained above. However, there can be a (temporary) arbitrage opportunity if the price in GBP does not reflect the price in USD and the exchange rate put together.
With the disclaimer that I am not a technician, I'd answer yes, it does. SPY (for clarification, an ETF that reflects the S&P 500 index) has dividends, and earnings, therefore a P/E and dividend yield. It would follow that the tools technicians use, such as moving averages, support and resistance levels also apply.  Keep in mind, each and every year, one can take the S&P stocks and break them up, into quintiles or deciles based on return and show that not all stock move in unison. You can break up by industry as well which is what the SPDRs aim to do, and observe the movement of those sub-groups.  But, no, not all the stocks will perform the way the index is predicted to.  (Note - If a technician wishes to correct any key points here, you are welcome to add a note, hopefully, my answer was not biased) "Ask your trading site for their definition of ""ETF"". The term itself is overloaded/ambiguous. Consider: If ""ETF"" is interpreted liberally, then any fund that trades on a [stock] exchange is an exchange-traded fund. i.e. the most literal meaning implied by the acronym itself. Whereas, if ""ETF"" is interpreted more narrowly and in the sense that most market participants might use it, then ""ETF"" refers to those exchange-traded funds that specifically have a mechanism in place to ensure the fund's current price remains close to its net asset value. This is not the case with closed-end funds (CEFs), which often trade at either a premium or a discount to their underlying net asset value." "I made an investing mistake many (eight?) years ago. Specifically, I invested a very large sum of money in a certain triple leveraged ETF (the asset has not yet been sold, but the value has decreased to maybe one 8th or 5th of the original amount). I thought the risk involved was the volatility--I didn't realize that due to the nature of the asset the value would be constantly decreasing towards zero! Anyhow, my question is what to do next?  I would advise you to sell it ASAP. You didn't mention what ETF it is, but chances are you will continue to lose money. The complicating factor is that I have since moved out of the United States and am living abroad (i.e. Japan). I am permanent resident of my host country, I have a steady salary that is paid by a company incorporated in my host country, and pay taxes to the host government. I file a tax return to the U.S. Government each year, but all my income is excluded so I do not pay any taxes. In this way, I do not think that I can write anything off on my U.S. tax return. Also, I have absolutely no idea if I would be able to write off any losses on my Japanese tax return (I've entrusted all the family tax issues to my wife). Would this be possible?  I can't answer this question but you seem to be looking for information on ""cross-border tax harvesting"". If Google doesn't yield useful results, I'd suggest you talk to an accountant who is familiar with the relevant tax codes. Are there any other available options (that would not involve having to tell my wife about the loss, which would be inevitable if I were to go the tax write-off route in Japan)? This is off topic but you should probably have an honest conversation with your wife regardless. If I continue to hold onto this asset the value will decrease lower and lower. Any suggestions as to what to do? See above: close your position ASAP For more information on the pitfalls of leveraged ETFs (FINRA) What happens if I hold longer than one trading day?  While there may be trading and hedging strategies that justify holding these investments longer than a day, buy-and-hold investors with an intermediate or long-term time horizon should carefully consider whether these ETFs are appropriate for their portfolio. As discussed above, because leveraged and inverse ETFs reset each day, their performance can quickly diverge from the performance of the underlying index or benchmark. In other words, it is possible that you could suffer significant losses even if the long-term performance of the index showed a gain." You will most likely not be able to avoid some form of format conversion, regardless of which data you use since there is, afaik, no standard for this data and everyone exports it differently. One viable option would be, like you said yourself, using the free data provided by Dukascopy. Please take into consideration that those are spot currency rates and will most likely not represent the rate at which physical and business-related exchange would have happened at this time. Like others have said, mutual funds don't have an intraday NAV, but their ETF equivalents do. Use something like Yahoo Finance and search for the ETF.IV. For example VOO.IV. This will give you not the ETF price (which may be at a premium or discount), but the value of the underlying securities updated every 15 seconds. "Without going into minor details, an FX transaction works essentially like this. Let's assume you have SEK 100 on your account. If you buy 100 USD/RUB at 1.00, then that transaction creates a positive cash balance on your account of USD 100 and a negative cash balance (an overdraft) of RUB 100. So right after the transaction (assuming there is not transaction cost), the ""net equity"" of your account is: 100 SEK + 100 USD - 100 RUB = 100 + 100 - 100 = 100 SEK. Let's say that, the day after, the RUB has gone down by 10% and the RUB 100 is now worth SEK 90 only. Your new equity is: 100 SEK + 100 USD - 100 RUB = 100 + 100 - 90 = 110 SEK and you've made 10%(*): congrats! Had you instead bought 100 SEK/RUB, the result would have been the same (assuming the USD/SEK rate constant). In practice the USD/SEK rate would probably not be constant and you would need to also account for: (*) in your example, the USD/RUB has gone up 10% but the RUB has gone down 9.09%, hence the result you find. In my example, the RUB has gone down 10% (i.e. the USD has gone up 11%)." "Following comments to your question here, you posted a separate question about why SPY, SPX, and the options contract don't move perfectly together.  That's here Why don't SPY, SPX, and the e-mini s&p 500 track perfectly with each other? I provided an answer to that question and will build on it to answer what I think you're asking on this question.  Specifically, I explained what it means that these are ""all based on the S&P.""  Each is a different entity, and different market forces keep them aligned.  I think talking about ""technicals"" on options contracts is going to be too confusing since they are really a very different beast based on forward pricing models, so, for this question, I'll focus on only SPY and SPX. As in my other answer, it's only through specific market forces (the creation / redemption mechanism that I described in my other answer), that they track at all.  There's nothing automatic about this and it has nothing to do with some issuer of SPY actually holding stock in the companies that comprise the SPX index. (That's not to say that the company does or doesn't hold, just that this doesn't drive the prices.)  What ever technical signals you're tracking, will reflect all of the market forces at play.  For SPX (the index), that means some aggregate behavior of the component companies, computed in a ""mathematically pure"" way.  For SPY (the ETF), that means (a) the behavior of SPX and (b) the behavior of the ETF as it trades on the market, and (c) the action of the authorized participants.  These are simply different things. Which one is ""right""?  That depends on what you want to do.  In theory you might be able to do some analysis of technical signals on SPY and SPX and, for example, use that to make money on the way that they fail to track each other.  If you figure out how to do that, though, don't post it here.  Send it to me directly. :)" SeekingAlpha has a section dedicated to Short ETFs as well as others. In there you will find SH, and SDS.  Both of which are inverse to the S&P 500.  Edit: I linked to charts that compare SH and SDS to SPY. You have stumbled upon a classic trading strategy known as the carry trade. Theoretically you'd expect the exchange rate to move against you enough to make this a bad investment. In reality this doesn't happen (on average). There are even ETFs that automate the process for you (and get better transaction costs and lending/borrowing rates than you ever could): DBV and ICI. Do you have a good reason for keeping a US bank account?  If not, I would close it and transfer to your Canadian bank account just to simplify your life. Unless you are investing on the scale of George Soros you shouldn't be worrying too much about exchange rates. "When you hold units of the DLR/DLR.U (TSX) ETF, you are indirectly holding U.S. dollars cash or cash equivalents. The ETF can be thought of as a container. The container gives you the convenience of holding USD in, say, CAD-denominated accounts that don't normally provide for USD cash balances. The ETF price ($12.33 and $12.12, in your example) simply reflects the CAD price of those USD, and the change is because the currencies moved with respect to each other. And so, necessarily, given how the ETF is made up, when the value of the U.S. dollar declines vs. the Canadian dollar, it follows that the value of your units of DLR declines as quoted in Canadian dollar terms. Currencies move all the time. Similarly, if you held the same amount of value in U.S. dollars, directly, instead of using the ETF, you would still experience a loss when quoted in Canadian dollar terms. In other words, whether or not your U.S. dollars are tied up either in DLR/DLR.U or else sitting in a U.S. dollar cash balance in your brokerage account, there's not much of a difference: You ""lose"" Canadian dollar equivalent when the value of USD declines with respect to CAD. Selling, more quickly, your DLR.U units in a USD-denominated account to yield U.S. dollars that you then directly hold does not insulate you from the same currency risk. What it does is reduce your exposure to other cost/risk factors inherent with ETFs: liquidity, spreads, and fees. However, I doubt that any of those played a significant part in the change of value from $12.33 to $12.12 that you described." "When you invest in an S&P500 index fund that is priced in USD, the only major risk you bear is the risk associated with the equity that comprises the index, since both the equities and the index fund are priced in USD. The fund in your question, however, is priced in EUR. For a fund like this to match the performance of the S&P500, which is priced in USD, as closely as possible, it needs to hedge against fluctuations in the EUR/USD exchange rate. If the fund simply converted EUR to USD then invested in an S&P500 index fund priced in USD, the EUR-priced fund may fail to match the USD-priced fund because of exchange rate fluctuations. Here is a simple example demonstrating why hedging is necessary. I assumed the current value of the USD-priced S&P500 index fund is 1,600 USD/share. The exchange rate is 1.3 USD/EUR. If you purchase one share of this index using EUR, you would pay 1230.77 EUR/share:  If the S&P500 increases 10% to 1760 USD/share and the exchange rate remains unchanged, the value of the your investment in the EUR fund also increases by 10% (both sides of the equation are multiplied by 1.1):  However, the currency risk comes into play when the EUR/USD exchange rate changes. Take the 10% increase in the price of the USD index occurring in tandem with an appreciation of the EUR to 1.4 USD/EUR:  Although the USD-priced index gained 10%, the appreciation of the EUR means that the EUR value of your investment is almost unchanged from the first equation. For investments priced in EUR that invest in securities priced in USD, the presence of this additional currency risk mandates the use of a hedge if the indexes are going to track. The fund you linked to uses swap contracts, which I discuss in detail below, to hedge against fluctuations in the EUR/USD exchange rate. Since these derivatives aren't free, the cost of the hedge is included in the expenses of the fund and may result in differences between the S&P500 Index and the S&P 500 Euro Hedged Index.  Also, it's important to realize that any time you invest in securities that are priced in a different currency than your own, you take on currency risk whether or not the investments aim to track indexes. This holds true even for securities that trade on an exchange in your local currency, like ADR's or GDR's. I wrote an answer that goes through a simple example in a similar fashion to the one above in that context, so you can read that for more information on currency risk in that context.  There are several ways to investors, be they institutional or individual, can hedge against currency risk. iShares offers an ETF that tracks the S&P500 Euro Hedged Index and uses a over-the-counter currency swap contract called a month forward FX contract to hedge against the associated currency risk. In these contracts, two parties agree to swap some amount of one currency for another amount of another currency, at some time in the future. This allows both parties to effectively lock in an exchange rate for a given time period (a month in the case of the iShares ETF) and therefore protect themselves against exchange rate fluctuations in that period.  There are other forms of currency swaps, equity swaps, etc. that could be used to hedge against currency risk. In general, two parties agree to swap one quantity, like a EUR cash flow, payments of a fixed interest rate, etc. for another quantity, like a USD cash flow, payments based on a floating interest rate, etc. In many cases these are over-the-counter transactions, there isn't necessarily a standardized definition.  For example, if the European manager of a fund that tracks the S&P500 Euro Hedged Index is holding euros and wants to lock in an effective exchange rate of 1.4 USD/EUR (above the current exchange rate), he may find another party that is holding USD and wants to lock in the respective exchange rate of 0.71 EUR/USD. The other party could be an American fund manager that manages a USD-price fund that tracks the FTSE. By swapping USD and EUR, both parties can, at a price, lock in their desired exchange rates.  I want to clear up something else in your question too. It's not correct that the ""S&P 500 is completely unrelated to the Euro."" Far from it. There are many cases in which the EUR/USD exchange rate and the level of the S&P500 index could be related. For example: Troublesome economic news in Europe could cause the euro to depreciate against the dollar as European investors flee to safety, e.g. invest in Treasury bills. However, this economic news could also cause US investors to feel that the global economy won't recover as soon as hoped, which could affect the S&P500.  If the euro appreciated against the dollar, for whatever reason, this could increase profits for US businesses that earn part of their profits in Europe. If a US company earns 1 million EUR and the exchange rate is 1.3 USD/EUR, the company earns 1.3 million USD. If the euro appreciates against the dollar to 1.4 USD/EUR in the next quarter and the company still earns 1 million EUR, they now earn 1.4 million USD. Even without additional sales, the US company earned a higher USD profit, which is reflected on their financial statements and could increase their share price (thus affecting the S&P500). Combining examples 1 and 2, if a US company earns some of its profits in Europe and a recession hits in the EU, two things could happen simultaneously. A) The company's sales decline as European consumers scale back their spending, and B) the euro depreciates against the dollar as European investors sell euros and invest in safer securities denominated in other currencies (USD or not). The company suffers a loss in profits both from decreased sales and the depreciation of the EUR.  There are many more factors that could lead to correlation between the euro and the S&P500, or more generally, the European and American economies. The balance of trade, investor and consumer confidence, exposure of banks in one region to sovereign debt in another, the spread of asset/mortgage-backed securities from US financial firms to European banks, companies, municipalities, etc. all play a role.  One example of this last point comes from this article, which includes an interesting line: Among the victims of America’s subprime crisis are eight municipalities in Norway, which lost a total of $125 million through subprime mortgage-related investments. Long story short, these municipalities had mortgage-backed securities in their investment portfolios that were derived from, far down the line, subprime mortgages on US homes. I don't know the specific cities, but it really demonstrates how interconnected the world's economies are when an American family's payment on their subprime mortgage in, say, Chicago, can end up backing a derivative investment in the investment portfolio of, say, Hammerfest, Norway." Does the Spanish market, or any other market in euroland, have the equivalent of ETF's?  If so there ought to be one that is based on something like the US S&P500 or Russell 3000. Otherwise you might check for local offices of large mutual fund companies such as Vanguard, Schwab etc to see it they have funds for sale there in Spain that invest in the US markets.  I know for example Schwab has something for Swiss residents to invest in the US market.  Do bear in mind that while the US has a stated policy of a 'strong dollar', that's not really what we've seen in practice.  So there is substantial 'currency risk' of the dollar falling vs the euro, which could result in a loss for you.  (otoh, if the Euro falls out of bed, you'd be sitting pretty.)  Guess it all depends on how good your crystal ball is. When you want to invest in an asset denominated by a foreign currency, your investment is going to have some currency risk to it. You need to worry not just about what happens to your own currency, but also the foreign currency. Lets say you want to invest $10000 in US Stocks as a Canadian. Today that will cost you $13252, since USDCAD just hit 1.3252. You now have two ways you can make money. One is if USDCAD goes up, two is if the stocks go up. The former may not be obvious, but remember, you are holding US denominated assets currently, with the intention of one day converting those assets back into CAD. Essentially, you are long USDCAD (long USD short CAD). Since you are short CAD, if CAD goes up it hurts you It may seem odd to think about this as a currency trade, but it opens up a possibility. If you want a foreign investment to be currency neutral, you just make the opposite currency trade, in addition to your original investment. So in this case, you would buy $10,000 in US stocks, and then short USDCAD (ie long CAD, short USD $10,000). This is kind of savvy and may not be something you would do. But its worth mentioning. And there are also some currency hedged ETFs out there that do this for you http://www.ishares.com/us/strategies/hedge-currency-impact However most are hedged relative to USD, and are meant to hedge the target countries currency, not your own. Some of the ETFs you have specified have been delisted and are no longer trading.  If you want to invest in those specific ETFs, you need to find a broker that will let you buy European equities such as those ETFs.  Since you mentioned Merrill Edge, a discount broking platform, you could also consider Interactive Brokers since they do offer trading on the London Stock Exchange.  There are plenty more though.  Beware that you are now introducing a foreign exchange risk into your investment too and that taxation of capital returns/dividends may be quite different from a standard US-listed ETF. In the US, there are no Islamic or Shariah focussed ETFs or ETNs listed.  There was an ETF (JVS) that traded from 2009-2010 but this had such little volume and interest, the fees probably didn't cover the listing expenses.  It's just not a popular theme for North American listings.