5th bullet point from the top on the page given below: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-...-here-are-troubling-questions-posed-jim-grant Why not pick stocks to go long and short in a hedge fund? What's with all those ETFs that simply hold baskets of stocks? It's bizarre. Are there some sort of rebates Bridgewater is getting for buying these? Anybody know what's going on?
Could be a lot of things. We here at ET have the best minds in the biz, I'm sure someone will figure it out
Why would Bridgewater hedge fund hold 87% of equity assets in simple ETF's? Why not?, where else ale are their going to put their cash, bury it in central park? Many ETF's these days have very low fees, tight spreads, & track the underlying accurately. The products that attract retail due to the leverage is something many pros managing $ do not mess with - especially options with their high commissions, time decay, and all around horrendous risk profile.
They are a macro fund, ETFs and futures is the most liquid and non-idiosyncratic way of getting equity exposure.
Very hard to get out of swaps and or forwards. Much easier and less risky to go with the underlying. Unless of course, you are Warren Buffett.
Ever wonder how many Hedge funds actually hedge the underlying? Some ETFs have enough option volume to hedge the ETFs, but many are thin. Many ETFs have sizeable gaps. Face it, many managers can't pick stocks any better than retail. For percentage gains, ETFs not the way to go cause not all the stocks within ETF are same trend as individual stocks/commodities in uptrend.
A significant part of the market is psychological, and ETFs are an easier way to play that. IOW... manager thinks, "oil is good here", or "emerging markets", or "tech", etc. Instead of sifting through each space to pick individual stocks, he goes with the ETF instead. Completely logical. That and the "free WSJ subscription" thingy.