This weekend’s money sections: Happy 10th anniversary ETFs

Although the weekend papers were covered in volcanic ash stories, not excluding the money sections, we have made the executive decision to side-step the resulting pandemonium and focus on another less publicised event…yes, the 10^th birthday of exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Both the Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph went to town on both commodities and ETFs. The Telegraph Money’s splash on commodities looked into platinum and palladium as well as the old staple gold, with both of the former apparently attracting increasing interest from investors. Richard Evans and Emma Wall point out that ETFs offer investors an easy way to get exposure to these valuable metals. 

Paul Farrow joined the debate in his comment in the Sunday Telegraph, writing that although more than $1 trillion has been invested in ETFs, the vast majority of trades are made by overseas investors. Farrow goes on to highlight that investors could be missing a trick as many professionals think ETFs add to an investor’s armoury.

Rather than looking at metal Liz Phillips at the Mail focused on investing in oil – another commodity easily accessible via an ETF. However, a word of warning came from Justin Urquhart Stewart of Seven Investment Management who, notwithstanding a firm belief in ETFs as an investment tool, said that now is not the time to buy one investing in oil.

Here at MRM towers we like to give a balanced view and just this was provided for us on the subject of ETFs by the Times‘ David Budworth.  With iShares estimating that the market will grow by 30% this year Budworth highlighted that some experts are questioning whether they have become too dangerous. Budworth also provides a handy pros and cons table which hopefully unravelled any confusion investors may have been feeling.

Scores for money sections topics are as follows: