Five Obscure Conservative ETFs

Market volatility can be, well, overrated to say the least and conservative investing can be somewhat underrated. While every investment style has its season, there's nothing wrong with slapping the conservative label on at least part of your portfolio. And when it comes to ETFs, savvy investors know that this asset class is home to a lot more choices for conservative investors than some pundits would lead us to believe. In fact, using the following conservative ETFs, investors can build a portfolio that covers a lot of bases at the sector level and with various fixed income options. Without further ado, here are five ETFs to consider for the conservative part of your portfolio. iShares S&P Conservative Allocation Fund AOK: The iShares S&P Conservative Allocation Fund only seems to grab press attention when someone is opining about conservative investing. Even then, AOK is glossed over quite a bit. AOK is really an ETF fund-of-funds as all of its holdings are other iShares ETFs. The 0.3% expense ratio is fair and if you need fixed income exposure, AOK has you covered as 82% of the ETF's weight is devoted to U.S. Treasuries or highly-rated corporate issues. Russell Equity Income ETF EQIN: The Russell Equity Income ETF made its debut in May and is off to a solid start, having attracted almost $9.1 million in assets under management. Home to 256 stocks, EQIN's top-10 holdings are all Dow stocks except for Wells Fargo WFC. The average market cap of EQIN's holdings is $73.4 billion, but one quibble would be a hefty allocation to bank stocks. Other than that, the ETF's yield of 2.69% is better than being in cash and the fund is right up there when it comes to conservative equities-based ETFs. PowerShares Build America Bond Portfolio BAB: Just a few days shy of its second birthday, the PowerShares Build America Bond Portfolio could and arguably should change a lot investors' notions about bond ETFs being boring. Maybe BAB is boring, but with almost $674 million in AUM, the ETF is established as a bond fund titan. Not only does BAB have a 30-day yield of 4.92%, the ETF is up almost 12.4% year-to-date compared to a slightly negative performance for the S&P 500. EGShares Utilities GEMS ETF UGEM: A utilities ETF of some kind is almost a prerequisite for conservative ETF lists, but we decided to add some emerging markets flair with UGEM, which made its debut in June. Brazil, India and Chile combine for about 58% of UGEM's weight and the ETF is home to 30 stocks. Not your grandfather's utility ETF, but hey it's a new day for utilities ETFs. Sort of. iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Minimum Volatility Index Fund EEMV: The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Minimum Volatility Index Fund is barely a week old, so data on this ETF is sparse. EEMV has almost $10.1 million in AUM and an expense ratio of 0.25%, according to the iShares Web site. Home to 183 stocks, EEMV appears to be a lower volatility alternative to the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund EEM. Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Brazil account for 51% of EEMV's county weight.