Here's one shift that's been quietly going on in the stock market in recent years: Exchange-traded funds, which were once the hottest thing in investing, have been losing some of their luster. After peaking at nearly 20 percent of all market trades in 2009, ETFs now constitute about 16.5 percent of all equity volume.
ETF volume tends to increase when the markets are in turmoil. In 2011, when the Eurozone crisis was raging and the S&P 500 was flat on the year, ETF trades ticked upward to 18.2 percent of all volume. That dropped back down to 16.7 percent last year, and has continued to decline this year.
The movement away from ETFs also serves as a signal that stock-picking is coming back into vogue. Correlations among asset classes are coming down, meaning that the type of active management that Echelon Wealth employs is now becoming even more valuable.
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