Brief History of ETF's

Exchange Traded Funds (or ETFs) have been available in the US since 1993 and in Europe from 1999. The idea of ETFs is to put funds and stock exchange trading into one product. Traditionally, funds or cash and stock exchange investments have been carefully kept apart to reflect liquidity issues. An ETF is a pool fund invested with a stated investment objective, for example, a tracker fund for the energy sector or geographical area. Shares owned in this fund by investors are in turn traded on an exchange.