As we continue to ride the rally, stocks are looking fairly valued. Nevertheless, the markets are not perfectly efficient, and investors can still find some relatively cheap exchange traded fund bargain picks.
ETFs have to disclose holdings every day, which has allowed one investment research firm to quickly evaluate an ETF’s equity holdings with their analysts’ fair value estimates, writes Adam Zoll for Morningstar. Consequently, investors are able to find ETFs trading at a discount or premium to the value of their underlying holdings as calculated by Morningstar’s equity analysts.
“Currently the stock market is fairly valued, according to Morningstar’s equity analysts, and as a result, many ETFs – the majority of which are index-based and many of which track wide swaths of the market – are more or less fairly valued as well,” Zoll said.
However, there are still some opportunities to jump on. For instance, the Market Vectors Steel ETF (SLX) is the most undervalued ETF on Morningstar’s list, trading around the mid-$40s despite a fair value estimate of $64. SLX tracks an index of 26 publicly traded steel industry firms. The fund has a 0.55% expense ratio.
Other bargain finds Morningstar has listed include:
Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (OIH) . OIH trades around $43, with a fair value estimate of $47. This energy ETF includes companies that provide drilling and other services to the oil industry, such as Schlumberger (SLB) and Halliburton (HAL), which make up 30% of the portfolio. Nevertheless, the fund’s performance is still tied to crude oil and natural gas prices. OIH has a 0.35% expense ratio.
iShares Dow Jones US Technology (IYW) . IYW trades around $73, with a fair value estimate of $80. The fund follows a cap-weighted index of 140 tech stocks, including Apple (AAPL), IBM (IBM), Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT). IYW has a 0.47% expense ratio.
SPDR S&P Metals & Mining (XME) . XME trades around $40, with a fair value estimate of $49. The ETF follows an equal-weighted S&P Metals and Mining Select Industry Index, which includes U.S. companies that produce coal, aluminum, steel, gold, copper and iron. XME has a 0.35% expense ratio.
For more information on ETFs, visit our ETF 101 category.
Max Chen contributed to this article.
The opinions and forecasts expressed herein are solely those of Tom Lydon, and may not actually come to pass. Information on this site should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product.