Claymore Investments Inc is a pioneer investment group for introducing low cost ETFs and closed ended funds. Claymore ETFs are designed to track the indices capturing investments of potential asset class. These ETFs are designed with research partners and institutional asset management companies to produce strategy based ETFs. Currently Claymore is covering Canada, US and Global core equity markets.
Claymore ETFs cover a variety of investment categories which include fundamental indices, sector based ETFs (financials, real estate, oil, mining, agriculture, water), emerging markets, fixed income, commodities and core portfolio ETFs.
Claymore ETF business has approximately $2.9 billion in assets only in the US market. Popular funds include Claymore BRIC (NYSEArca: EEB) and Claymore/AlphaShares China Samll Cap (NYSEArca:HAO).
2010 has been a good year for Claymore ETFs. Claymore/AlphaShares China Technology ETF (NYSE: CQQQ) has been a top performer for China ETF market with a daily volume trading of around 23000 shares. HAO has been right behind it with $317 million in assets and up to 8% year-to-date return.
Other top performing Claymore ETFs include:
Some Claymore ETFs has also lost the interest for investors. ETFs like Claymore/Zacks Country Rotation ETF (CRO), Claymore/Beacon Global Exchanges, Brokers & Asset Managers Index ETF (EXB), Claymore/Zacks Dividents Rotation ETF(IRO) and Claymore/Robb Report Global Luxury Index ETF (ROB) experienced a shut down because of losing investor interest.
Claymore is in the process of introducing ETFs in new sectors of the stock market. In the mid of 2010 it announced the listing of seven new corporate bond ETFs on NYSE Arca. Since the inception of Claymore ETFs in 2006 the Claymore offering list has grown to over 33 ETFs. The five ETFs that has performed outstandingly for Claymore until the start of 2011 are
- Claymore/BNY BRIC (EEB) : the strongest performance on absolute and relative basis, EEB is up to 65.8% year-to-date with returns of 93.8%.
- Claymore/Zacks Sector Rotation (XRO): XRO has returns of 23.2% with up to 15.8% YTD. It has outperformed the S&P 500 index by 6.8% points.
- Claymore/Sabrient Insider (NFO): a recently introduced ETF and a strong performer as well. NFO had returns of 21.6% with up to 15.4% YTD. It outperformed the S&P 500 by 5.2% points.
- Claymore/Zacks Yield Hog (CVY): acted like a silent conqueror, CVY uses the sampling approach to invest in companies. It returned 8.7% till early 2011 with up to 1.7% YTD.
- Claymore/Sabrietn Stealth (STH): STH returned 7% until the start of 2011 outperforming the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 Index. STH has also not received much coverage but generally performed well.
In 2010 Claymore became a retail division of Guggenheim with much of the names in the ETF being changed from claymore to Guggenheim. The symbols of all the ETFs are still the same and they are still referred to by their original names.
