ETFs, A Brief History

In January of 1993 State Street, an investment company, introduced the first ETF and based it upon the S&P 500. The ETF was given the title Standard & Poor’s Depository Receipt and traded under the acronym SPDR. During the remainder of the nineties, interest in SPDR’s, and a few other ETFs that followed, was limited mainly limited to institutional investors. Institutional investors found ETFs a convenient way to participated in the market without encoring high transaction costs. Today...