ETF Liquidity

Author: Adam Stewart

ETFs trade like stocks with market makers posting quotes on various exchanges. Much like stocks, ETFs can be bought or sold throughout the day. Many investors express concern over perceived illiquidity of smaller or newer ETFs. They see an ETF that might have volume of only a few thousand shares per day and trade with extremely wide spreads. A major difference in trading stocks and ETFs is the create/redeem process.

Trading ETFs in size can be facilitated through this process, negating concerns of on-screen liquidity. An ETF sponsor’s capital markets team can also work with market makers in order to narrow spreads for known large order flow.

Liquidity concerns should be more focused on the liquidity of the underlying holdings in an ETF versus the liquidity of the ETF itself. For illiquid ETFs that hold liquid securities, larger share quantities can be traded through the create/redeem process. Trading in size in ETFs, it’s the liquidity in the underlying holdings that is most relevant as opposed to the liquidity of the ETF itself. Make sure to reach out to the ETF sponsor’s capital markets team for help navigating these unique benefits.

Learn more about Liquid Strategies and our offerings.

The assertions and statements in this blog post are based on the opinions of the author and Liquid Strategies. The examples cited in this paper are based on hypothetical situations and should only be considered as examples of potential trading strategies. They do not take into consideration the impact that certain economic or market factors have on the decision making process. Past performance is no indication of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss.

Topics: Overlay, ETF

Terms & Conditions

Important Legal Information
Please read these Terms and Conditions of Use (“Terms and Conditions”) carefully. Liquid Strategies, LLC, doing business as “Liquid Strategies” (“Liquid Strategies”), is a registered investment adviser, and owns and operates this Web site (“Site”). By registering for, logging into, visiting and/or otherwise using the Site in any way, you indicate that you understand and intend these Terms and Conditions to be the legal equivalent of a signed, written contract, and you accept the terms of use as set forth herein and agree to be legally bound by them. If you do not agree to these Terms and Conditions, please do not access this Site or any pages thereof.

Reservation of Rights
Liquid Strategies reserves the right, at our discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of these Terms and Conditions at any time. Your continued use of the Site following reasonable notice of such modifications will be conclusively deemed acceptance of any changes to these Terms and Conditions. You agree that notice of changes to these Terms and Conditions posted on the Site constitutes reasonable and sufficient notice. At all times, you are bound by the then-current version of the Terms and Conditions and of all applicable laws.

Use of Content
The Content (as defined below) of this Site is available for informational purposes only. The posting of Content and access to this Site does not constitute, either explicitly or implicitly, any provision of services or products by Liquid Strategies or any of their respective affiliates.

Copyright
This Site (including the software and files), the computers hosting this Site, and content provided on this Site, including any text, music and sound, graphics, images, photographs, audio and video, footage, animations, podcasts, analyses, studies, reports, and downloads (all such content collectively, the “Content”) are the exclusive property of Liquid Strategies or are licensed to the Liquid Strategies, and are protected by law, including United States copyright, database, trade secret, and trademark law, as well as other state, national, and international laws and regulations. Liquid Strategies reserves all rights with respect to its proprietary information or material on this Site and will enforce such rights to the full extent of applicable copyright and trademark law. Except as expressly provided in these Terms and Conditions, Liquid Strategies does not grant any express or implied rights to you. All rights in the pages and Site Content are owned by Liquid Strategies and their respective licensors. You agree not to sell, distribute, publish, broadcast, circulate or commercially exploit Site Content in any manner without the express written consent of the Liquid Strategies. Any downloading or otherwise copying from this Site will not transfer title to any software or material to you. Unless otherwise noted, Liquid Strategies, and other brands featured on the Site constitute our trade/service marks. You agree not to directly or indirectly: attempt to register, challenge or contest the validity of the respective Liquid Strategies’ ownership of, such copyrights, trademarks or any other intellectual property of Liquid Strategies, or assist any third party in doing so.

Grant of License
Liquid Strategies grants to you a personal, revocable, nonexclusive, nontransferable license to use this Site conditioned on your continued compliance with these Terms and Conditions. Limited portions of the Content available in the public areas of the Site may be accessed, printed and downloaded on an occasional basis for personal, scholarly, research or non-commercial purposes; provided that all hard copies contain all copyright and other applicable proprietary rights notices included in such content and information and/or appropriate attribution to Liquid Strategies in a form and manner acceptable to us. For information on obtaining permission to use any Content beyond the uses permitted above, please contact Liquid Strategies at Six Concourse Parkway, Suite 3300, Atlanta, GA 30328, (800) 970-2725. Unless and except as otherwise expressly permitted by these Terms and Conditions, you may not access, copy, reproduce, modify, create derivative works of, alter, publicly distribute, republish, upload, post, transmit, publicly perform or display, license, transfer, sell, mirror, frame, “deep link,” “scrape,” data mine, or otherwise use any information or material obtained from or through this Site, without written permission from Liquid Strategies. Any unauthorized use of this Site or the Content will terminate the permission granted herein and may violate applicable laws, including copyright law, trademark laws, and commercial regulations and statutes.

No Offer
Nothing contained herein constitutes an offer, solicitation or recommendation regarding any investment management product or service, or the offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security; nor shall any such services be provided, or securities be offered or sold, in any jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation, provision or sale would be unlawful. All Site Content is subject to applicable statutes and regulations. This Site is published in the United States for residents of the United States. Investors outside of the United States are subject to securities and tax regulations within their applicable jurisdictions that are not addressed on this Site. U.S. investors are advised that not all investments or services described on this Site are available for sale in all states. Any potential investor should satisfy himself that an investment in any Liquid Strategies’ respective product is permissible under the rules and regulations of his or her domicile. The Site is not directed to any person in any jurisdiction where (by reason of that person's nationality, residence or otherwise) the publication or availability of the Site is prohibited. Persons in respect of whom such prohibitions apply must not access the Site.

The information provided is for informational purposes only and investors should determine for themselves whether a particular service or product is suitable for their investment needs or should seek such professional advice for their particular situation. Please refer to offering documents for further information concerning specific products.

Certain of the statements contained herein may be statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements that are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. In addition to statements which are forward-looking by reason of context, the words “may, will, should, expects, plans, intends, anticipates, believes, estimates, predicts, potential, or continue” and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements.

The matters discussed herein may also involve risks and uncertainties described from time to time in the respective Company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained herein.

No Reliance
Liquid Strategies has taken reasonable care to ensure that the information contained within this Site is accurate, no representation or warranty (including liability towards third parties), expressed or implied, is made as to its accuracy, reliability or completeness by the Liquid Strategies Companies or their contractual partners. Opinions and any other contents at the Site are provided by Liquid Strategies for personal use and informational purposes only and are subject to change without notice. Nothing contained on this Site constitutes investment, legal, tax or other advice and is not to be relied on in making an investment or other decision.

No Warranty
The information and opinions contained on this Site, including hyperlinks or references to other sites, are provided ‘as is’ without any warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, to the fullest extent permissible pursuant to applicable law. You are responsible for evaluating the adequacy, accuracy, reliability, merchantability, non-infringement, completeness of any information or the content available on the Site or fitness for any particular purpose with respect to the site or any of its content. Liquid Strategies further assumes no responsibility for, and makes no warranties that, functions contained on this Site will be uninterrupted or error-free, that defects will be corrected, or that this Site or the servers that make it available will be free of viruses or other harmful components.

Liability Waiver
Neither Liquid Strategies nor any of their respective affiliates, directors, officers, representatives or employees, nor any third party vendor, will be liable or have any liability, whether in contract, tort, strict liability or otherwise, for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, punitive or special damages arising out of or in any way connected with your access or use or inability to access or use the Site or reliance on the Content, or any failure of performance, interruption, defect, delay in transmission, computer viruses or other harmful components, or line or system failure associated with the Site, regardless of our knowledge thereof.

Events Beyond Our Control
You expressly absolve and release Liquid Strategies, their respective affiliates, related companies, and all of their respective officers, directors, employees, representatives, shareholders, legal representatives, attorneys, agents, successors and assigns, from any claim of harm resulting from a cause beyond its control including, but not limited to, the failure of electronic or mechanical equipment or communication lines, telephone or other interconnect problems, computer viruses or software failures, unauthorized access, theft, operator errors, severe weather, earthquakes, or natural disasters, strikes or other labor problems, wars, acts of domestic or foreign terrorism or governmental restrictions.

User Representations
You represent and warrant to the Liquid Strategies that you will not use this Site for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these Terms and Conditions, including but not limited to attempting or actually (a) disrupting, impairing or otherwise interfering with the operation or integrity of the Site or circumventing any Site security system; (b) collecting any information about other users of the Site; or (c) systematically extracting Content or other information or data contained in the Site to populate databases or other sites.

Non-Affiliate Linked Sites
Certain hyperlinks or referenced Web sites on the Site may for your convenience forward you to third parties' websites, which generally are recognized by their top level domain name. Any descriptions of, references to, or links to other products, publications or services does not constitute an endorsement, authorization, sponsorship by or affiliation with Liquid Strategies with respect to any linked site or its sponsor, unless expressly stated by Liquid Strategies. Any such information, products or sites have not necessarily been reviewed by Liquid Strategies and are provided or maintained by third parties over whom Liquid Strategies exercises no control. Liquid Strategies expressly disclaims any responsibility for the content, the accuracy of the information, and/or quality of products or services provided by or advertised on these third-party sites. Liquid Strategies reserves the right to terminate any hyperlink or hyper-linking program at any time.

Information Submitted By You
You should not submit any confidential or proprietary information via the Site. All information or material submitted through the Site will be deemed to be the property of the Liquid Strategies. By submitting any information or material to us through the Site, you grant us an unrestricted, irrevocable license to use, reproduce, display, perform, modify, transmit and distribute those materials or information. You also agree that Liquid Strategies is free to use for any purpose any ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques that you submit to us through the Site. Liquid Strategies shall not be subject to any obligations of confidentiality regarding submitted information, except as agreed by Liquid Strategies having a direct customer relationship or as otherwise specifically agreed or required by law.

Privacy Policy
Please refer to Liquid Strategies’ Privacy Policy for a summary of the personal Privacy Policy.

Jurisdiction, Severability
Any action arising out of these Terms and Conditions or the Site shall be litigated in, and only in, courts located in Georgia, and you agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of those courts and further agree that they are a convenient forum for you.

In the event that any provision of these terms is held unenforceable, the validity or enforceability of the remaining provisions will not be affected, and the unenforceable provision will be replaced with an enforceable provision that comes close to the intention underlying the unenforceable provision.