Research on holdings is necessary due diligence because an ETF's performance is only as good as its holdings' performance. No matter how cheap, if it holds bad stocks, the ETF's performance will be bad.
Check out my latest Danger Zone interview with Chuck Jaffe of MarketWatch.com.
This week, a former member of our Most Dangerous Stocks, is in the Danger Zone.
Fund holdings affect fund performance more than fees or past performance. A cheap fund is not necessarily a good fund.
Our research on fund holdings enables investors to find funds with high quality holdings - AND - low fees.
The small-cap value style ranks last out of the twelve fund styles as detailed in my style rankings for ETFs and mutual funds. It gets my Dangerous rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of 13 ETFs and 263 mutual funds in the small-cap value style as of October 22, 2012.
The small-cap blend style ranks 11th out of the twelve fund styles as detailed in my style rankings for ETFs and mutual funds. It gets my Dangerous rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of 21 ETFs and 657 mutual funds in the small-cap blend style as of October 22, 2012.
The mid-cap value style ranks tenth out of the twelve fund styles as detailed in my style rankings for ETFs and mutual funds. It gets my Dangerous rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of 12 ETFs and 176 mutual funds in the mid-cap value style as of October 22, 2012.
The mid-cap blend style ranks ninth out of the twelve fund styles as detailed in my style rankings for ETFs and mutual funds. It gets my Dangerous rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of 17 ETFs and 334 mutual funds in the mid-cap blend style as of October 22, 2012.
The small-cap growth style ranks eighth out of the twelve fund styles as detailed in my style rankings for ETFs and mutual funds. It gets my Dangerous rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of 11 ETFs and 493 mutual funds in the small-cap growth style as of October 19, 2012.
The all-cap value style ranks seventh out of the twelve fund styles as detailed in my style rankings for ETFs and mutual funds. It gets my Dangerous rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of two ETFs and 266 mutual funds in the all-cap value style as of October 19, 2012.
The Mid Cap Growth style ranks sixth out of the twelve fund styles as detailed in my style rankings for ETFs and mutual funds. It gets my Dangerous rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of 10 ETFs and 390 mutual funds in the Mid Cap Growth style as of October 17, 2012.
The all-cap growth style ranks fifth out of the twelve fund styles as detailed in my style rankings for ETFs and mutual funds. It gets my Neutral rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of two ETFs and 490 mutual funds in the all-cap growth style as of October 17, 2012.
The Large Cap Value style ranks fourth out of the twelve fund styles as detailed in my style rankings for ETFs and mutual funds. It gets my Neutral rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of 39 ETFs and 727 mutual funds in the Large Cap Value style as of October 17, 2012.
The All Cap Blend style ranks third out of the twelve fund styles as detailed in my style rankings for ETFs and mutual funds. It gets my Neutral rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of 31 ETFs and 753 mutual funds in the All Cap Blend style as of October 18, 2012.
The focus of this article is investing risk or the relative investment potential of the ETF. This risk is much more difficult to asses because it requires researching the investment potential of the ETFs holdings.
The large-cap growth style ranks second out of the twelve fund styles as detailed in my style rankings for ETFs and mutual funds. It gets my Neutral rating, which is based on aggregation of ratings of 25 ETFs and 707 mutual funds in the large-cap growth style as of October 12, 2012.