US Exchange Traded Funds (ETF)

State Street Global Advisors - SPDRs   - State Street Global Advisors provide some of the most popular and heavily traded ETFs in the US such as ticker symbol SPY (S&P 500 ETF) and GLD (Gold ).   

iShares - US traded - ETFs   - Blackrock is the company that owns the IShares ETF brand. There are a lot of ETFs offered by Ishares for various different commodities and countries around the world. iShares has a popular Gold ETF called IAU.

Vanguard  - Vanguard is a large financial company that has a large selection of ETFs and Mutual Funds. They have a reputation for having low expense ratios on the funds and ETFs.

Direxion - Leveraged ETFs   - Direxion has a number of leveraged ETFs for various asset classes. Some of their leveraged ETFs are 2X and 3X for various asset classes. A thorough understanding of how these specific ETFs work should be learned before an investment in these ETFs is undertaken. There is an education area Direxion education   that explains how the leveraged Direxion ETFs work. There are both Long and Short leveraged ETFs offered by Direxion for various asset classes.

Proshares  - Proshares is another company that offers leveraged ETFs (2X and 3X) both Long and Short for various asset classes. There is an education section on the proshares website that will help investors understand how the leveraged ETFs work  ( Proshares - Investor suitability - Leveraged ETFs    )

Wisdom Tree - Wisdom Tree offers many ETFs. With many US and global equity ETFs that will help Investors get exposure to various equity markets. There are limited fixed income ETFs offered with Wisdom Tree. 

Invesco Powershares  - this company has a large number of ETFs both actively managed and passively managed ETFs for all kinds of asset classes. They have specialty ETFs such as green ETFs, Income ETFs, Global ETFs and niche market ETFs such as Gold and Agriculture. An example of a specialty ETF is one that they offer that is based on the return from a covered call strategy on S&P 500 common shares owned in the ETF. There is also an ETF based on technical relative strength indicators which is a bit different from those offered by their competitors.

Charles Schwab - ETFs  - Charles Schwab is a major player in the US Discount Brokerage market. There are a small number of ETFs offered by the company from bonds, US Equity and some international ETFs. 

Advisor Shares - Advisor Shares is based out of Maryland, USA. This company provides actively managed ETFs. This company provides a listing of the holdings for each ETF. Holders of the ETF can see the full list of the shares being held within each ETF. There is a top 10 holdings for each ETF displayed on their website. 

ETF Securities - this is the USA based subsidiary for ETF Securities Ltd. It has operations in other parts of the world but there are restrictions on US based companies or US people from purchasing these products outside of the USA. This company has some products that invest in commodities, which allow investors to get exposure to these products. As with any investment it is important to read the prospectus and other pertinent information before making an investment. 

FT Portfolios - First Trust Advisors is a US based company that offers a number of ETFs that can be bought and sold on US exchanges. There are a decent number of ETF products that cover a wide spectrum of the US market. There are also a number of global ETFs that can give investors some global diversification. They sell their ETFs under the First Trust brand name.  

Guggenheim Partners - is a financial company based in the US. It has  changed the names of its Claymore ETFs  to Guggenheim ETFs. There are a variety of ETFs that are offered to give investors exposure to various fixed income, and equities in the US, Canada and elsewhere.  

Currency Shares.com  - Currency Shares offers products that enable investors a convenient and method of gaining investment benefits similar to that of holding foreign currencies.

Van Eck Global   - is a US financial company that offers both mutual funds and ETFs. It offers ETFs and ETNs (exchange traded notes) under the Market Vectors brand.