Why pick an etf over say a Quinn life fund/Rabo fund?
Have been looking at some etfs example: ishares DJ Euro Stock 50 and DBX-trackers Eurostock 50 – why would I pick one over the other. I mean what makes one better than the other?
(i) ETFs are listed on a recognised stock exchange so you can buy and sell them through a stockbroker quickly and without any paper work, just a phone call or if you have an onlne account you can buy/sell electronically. Also, you can see the ETF price at the time of dealing. With Quinn Life or Rabo trackers, you must deal directly with those institutions in buying into or selling out of their funds. This is a more cumbersome process (in my view) and the visibility of the price of your units in these non-listed funds is poorer.
(ii) In practice, there should be little if any difference between the DJ Euro Stoxx 50 ETF and the DB-Xtracker Euro Stoxx 50. You should make sure that a particular ETF is tracking the market you actually want and you would need to do that with the above two ETFs - you can do that by visiting the relevant web site. From memory the first one is listed on www.ishares.co.uk and the second on www.dbxtrackers.com
Secondly, you could check those web sites for the annual management fee each charges and whether they pay out or retain the dividends.