Ugly, Scary and Not Getting Better

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) It's tough to be an emerging-markets fund manager these days. And it's not looking like it will get better anytime soon, at least not before the first quarter is over. For those in doubt, examine the five biggest developing world stock funds in the U.S. by assets.

Combined, Vanguard's FTSE Emerging Markets ETF and Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund, Oppenheimer's Developing Market Fund, American Funds' New World Fund and the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF have lost $34.9 billion of assets under management over the past year, bringing their holdings to multi-year lows. The net asset values of all five touched the lowest in at least five years in January and remain close to that level. They have also had their worst first eight weeks since 2009.

That's on top of last year's performance, which, for the Vanguard FTSE EM ETF, the biggest in its class by assets, was the worst since 2011 based on the fund's price. While some of the others had a worse year in 2011, the prices of four of them fell more than 10 percent. Prices are usually equal to or track the net asset value closely.
Price Pain

Blame it on the main benchmark for stocks in the developing world, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, which was down more than 7 percent year-to-date as of Wednesday and is officially in bear territory. Unfortunately, the prospects for the index are hardly looking rosy.

For starters, volatility remains high and is trending up, judging by the Chicago Board Options Exchange's emerging markets exchange-traded fund volatility index. This is the closest proxy for the fear gripping money managers and investors..........(more)

http://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-02-25/emerging-market-funds-are-having-a-quarter-to-forget

[Wellstone ruled]

1. ETF's are a Stock Market

Trading Instrument used to hide garbage blended with a few quality stocks,much like or similiar to,the sliced and diced Mortgage Bonds of the 2000's. Interesting point is,70% of any ETF can be shorted at any time,sell Oil,short ETF's to cover your loss.

Total Commodity collapse,equity rotation.

[magical thyme]

2. David Stockman did a live online thing last night re: pending ETF crash

I was doubled-up with a stomach ache so couldn't watch it last night. Am trying (unsuccessfully) to download it now to watch before the video gets pulled tonight.

[magical thyme]

3. finally was able to view the Stockman video

he's buying put options on specific ETFs that he believes are due to start crashing He's 4 for 4 of his closed puts, and 5 for 6 of those still open. Of course to get specific recommendations which to buy and when, and when to sell, you need to subscribe to his newsletter, which normally is $3,000. per year but with this video is a one-time opportunity to subscribe for $1,750.

I clicked off at that point. Damn...I should have made a list of the open ones while the video was still on, lol. Amazon was one of them. That's all I remember