Its countdown time for all of those following PIMCO’s entry into the ETF space; on March 1,  the House that Bill Gross Built is scheduled to debut The PIMCO Total Return Exchange-Traded Fund under the ticker TRXT. Those that click on the link to the fund will be able to review the entire prospectus.

According to Securities Technology Monitor reporter Tom Steinert, “This is akin to the day in 1981 when IBM blessed the desktop computer as a product worth buying into.”

Because Gross is notorious for being an active manager (vs. passive), some industry observers fear that by virtue of PIMCO’s size,  this new ETF might somehow exacerbate the overall equity market volatility that some believe is attributable to ETFs in general. The editors here say “some people still believe the world is flat” and expert ETF traders that we’ve heard from dispel the notion that market volatility is attributable to ETF products.  Perhaps argument for the defense can be found simply by looking at the [declining] volatility over the past 3 months and the steadily increasing volumes in ETF products.

Alas, if only the SEC could see more clearly and recognize that its a handful of badly-designed apples in the ETF mix that are spoiling the reputation of the orchard.

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