Dan Culloton at Morningstar.com has gotten a little sick of the inordinate attention being paid to the entire exchange-traded fund (ETF) arena. He notes five myths about ETFs. The first myth debunked:

ETFs are getting all the fund flows.
They’re getting a lot, but not all. Altogether, ETFs had about $251.5 billion in assets at the end of August 2005 compared with traditional mutual funds’ $8.5 trillion, according to the Investment Company Institute. ETFs also netted about $18 billion in new money in 2005 through the end of August, the ICI says. That’s about 11% of all new money in any kind of fund, exchanged traded or otherwise. So, yes: You can say ETFs are hot sellers, but they’re certainly not gobbling up everything.

Four more myths follow. ETFs are a useful tool for many investors, but they are not the cure-all that many supporters contend. As usual, careful research should guide each investor’s decision-making.

Keep this in mind as a slew of advisors are beginning to market prepackaged separately managed accounts exclusively using ETFs. You can read the Marketwatch.com story here.

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