The Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of 11 spot bitcoin ETFs this week could be a turning point for cryptocurrency investing. Ark Invest CEO and Chief Investment Officer Cathie Wood is behind one of the new ETFs. Her firm partnered with 21Shares to launch the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF.
“We really believe this is an important moment for us to help with the democratization of bitcoin access, giving more people access,” Wood told “ETF Edge” on Monday. The first-ever batch of spot ETFs began trading Thursday. Investor interest in bitcoin leading up to the historic ETF approvals has been on the upswing.….Story continues…
By: Emily Glass
Source: Why spot ETFs may be a game changer for bitcoin
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ETFs are similar in many ways to mutual funds, except that ETFs are bought and sold from other owners throughout the day on stock exchanges, whereas mutual funds are bought and sold from the issuer based on their price at day’s end. ETFs are also more transparent since their holdings are generally published online daily and, in the United States, are more tax efficient than mutual funds.
Unlike mutual funds, ETFs trade on a stock exchange, can be sold short, can be purchased using funds borrowed from a stockbroker (margin), and can be purchased and sold using limit orders, with the buyer or seller aware of the price per share in advance. Both ETFs and mutual funds charge annual expense ratios that range from 0.02% of the investment value to upwards of 1% of the investment value.
Mutual funds generally have higher annual fees since they have higher marketing, distribution and accounting expenses (12b-1 fees). ETFs are also generally cheaper to operate since, unlike mutual funds, they do not have to buy and sell securities and maintain cash reserves to accommodate shareholder purchases and redemptions.
Stockbrokers may charge different commissions, if any, for the purchase and sale of ETFs and mutual funds. In addition, sales of ETFs in the United States are subject to transaction fees that the national securities exchanges must pay to the SEC under section 31 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which, as of February 2023, is $8 per $1 million in transaction proceeds. Many mutual funds can be bought commission-free from the issuer, although some charge front-end or back-end loads, while ETFs do not have loads at all.
In the United States, ETFs can be more attractive tax-wise than mutual funds for transactions made in taxable accounts. However, there are no tax benefits to ETFs compared to mutual funds in the United Kingdom and Germany. In the US, whenever a mutual fund realizes a capital gain that is not balanced by a realized loss (i.e. when the fund sells appreciated shares to meet investor redemptions), its shareholders who hold the fund in taxable accounts must pay capital gains taxes on their share of the gain.
However, ETF investors generally only realize capital gains when they sell their own shares for a gain. ETFs offered by Vanguard are actually a different share class of its mutual funds and do not stand on their own; however, they generally do not have any adverse tax issues. In the United States, ETFs can be more attractive tax-wise than mutual funds for transactions made in taxable accounts.
However, there are no tax benefits to ETFs compared to mutual funds in the United Kingdom and Germany. In the US, whenever a mutual fund realizes a capital gain that is not balanced by a realized loss (i.e. when the fund sells appreciated shares to meet investor redemptions), its shareholders who hold the fund in taxable accounts must pay capital gains taxes on their share of the gain. However, ETF investors generally only realize capital gains when they sell their own shares for a gain.
ETFs offered by Vanguard are actually a different share class of its mutual funds and do not stand on their own; however, they generally do not have any adverse tax issues. The most popular ETFs such as those tracking the S&P 500 trade tens of millions of shares per day and have strong market liquidity, while there are many ETFs that do not trade very often, and thus might be difficult to sell compared to more liquid ETFs.
The most active ETFs are very liquid, with high regular trading volume and tight bid-ask spreads (the gap between buyer and seller’s prices), and the price thus fluctuates throughout the day. This is in contrast with mutual funds, where all purchases or sales on a given day are executed at the same price at the end of the trading day.
Actively managed ETFs include active management, whereby the manager executes a specific trading strategy instead of replicating the performance of a stock market index. The securities held by such funds are posted on their websites daily, or quarterly in the cases of active non-transparent ETFs. The ETFs may then be at risk from people who might engage in front running since the portfolio reports can reveal the manager’s trading strategy.
Some actively managed equity ETFs address this problem by trading only weekly or monthly. The largest actively managed ETFs are the JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF (NYSE: JEPI), which charges 0.35% in annual fees, JPMorgan Ultra-Short Income ETF (NYSE: JPST), which charges 0.18% in annual fees, and the Pimco Enhanced Short Duration ETF (NYSE: MINT), which charges 0.36% in annual fees.
Cryptocurrency ETFs invest in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, or a basket of different cryptocurrencies. There are two types of crypto ETFs. Spot crypto ETFs invest directly in cryptocurrencies, tracking their real-time prices, and their share prices will fluctuate with the prices of the cryptocurrencies they hold.
On the other hand, future-based crypto ETFs refer to equities that do not invest directly in cryptocurrencies but rather in crypto futures contracts. These contracts are agreements to buy or sell cryptocurrencies at a predetermined price in the future. As a result, the share prices and price fluctuating trends of funds in these two types could be different, even though they hold identical cryptocurrencies and amounts.
ETF shares are created and redeemed when large broker-dealers called authorized participants (AP) act as market makers and purchase and redeem ETF shares directly from the ETF issuer in large blocks, generally 50,000 shares, called creation units. Purchases and redemptions of the creation units are generally in kind, with the AP contributing or receiving securities of the same type and proportion held by the ETF; the lists of ETF holdings are published online.
The ability to purchase and redeem creation units gives ETFs an arbitrage mechanism intended to minimize the potential deviation between the market price and the net asset value of ETF shares. APs provide market liquidity for the ETF shares and help ensure that their intraday market price approximates the net asset value of the underlying assets. Other investors, such as individuals using a retail broker, trade ETF shares on the secondary market.
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