
Corporate Bond ETFs and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

By Howard Simons
About this article:
Lou Gehrig famously called himself "the luckiest man on the face of the earth," but I respectfully disagree with the Iron Horse. The luckiest people have to be those corporate executives whose stock pops higher because it just moved into theS&P 500 or because of some artifact in the annual "Russell hustle" surrounding the reconstitution of those indices and whose stock options soar as a result. If your stock benefited because it grew into that slot, fine. But if it moved up in the ranks because others were taken out and shot, well, you are just lucky.
The ETF Effect
This inclusion effect worked with the introduction of commodity exchange-traded funds such as the SPDR Gold Trust in November 2004. The ETF holds gold bullion to back its shares, and with more than 1,100 metric tons in the vaults, it now ranks among the top 10 holders of...

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