In 2016, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway added four new airline stocks to its portfolio: American Airlines, Delta, Southwest and United Continental Holdings. The buy in on airline stocks was a big move. While Berkshire has trimmed some of its shares, the holdings still remain and investors have taken notice. There are several good reasons to invest in airline stocks and 2018 could see the category reporting new highs. 190 billion aggregate market cap to grab a piece of the potentially high-flying profits, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are a great way to diversify and hedge your risk.

For a pure airline play, however, the market is surprisingly tight, with just one ETF focused solely on the industry. Still, you can put your money in a transportation ETF and gain some exposure to the airline industry. Note: Funds were chosen on the basis of strategy, performance and assets under management.

This fund is designed to track the S&P Transportation Select Industry Index, a broad-based index of equities in the U.S. XTN is the cheapest in its segment with an expense ratio of 0.35%. Year-to-date (YTD) in 2017, the fund has a return of 22.74%. One-, three- and five-year annualized returns are 20.64%, 7.51% and 20.39% respectively.

IYT tracks the Dow Jones Transportation Average Index, a handful of domestic transportation stocks chosen by the Dow Jones Average Committee. The Index is weighted by price. The unusual weighting scheme of one share for each security lends itself to overweighting the high-priced equities and underweighting the lower-priced stocks. The airline sector accounts for 19.95% of the fund's portfolio of 20 stocks.

YTD the Fund has a return of 19.44%. IYT's one-, three- and five-year annualized returns are 17.70%, 6.42% and 16.56% respectively. Southwest Airlines lands in the top 10 holdings. Other airline stocks include: Alaska Air Group, United Continental, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and JetBlue Airways. This is the only pure-play airline ETF in the game at the moment. JETS is heavily weighted toward large caps, with 63% of its holdings in these stocks. Overall, its investment strategy seeks to track the U.S. Global Jets Index, which is an index of airline stocks. 100 million and daily stock trading volume.

In India, ETFs have been around the investment community for almost a decade. In India, ETFs started in 2001, with Nifty BEes being the first ETF to be launched. An ETF is designed to track a pool of securities that are listed on the Indian stock exchanges. Underlying securities could include mutual funds, bonds, stocks, etc. Over time, ETFs have become an easy and a preferred route for many investors to take exposure to the markets. ETFs have created possibilities for investors to gain broad exposure to entire stock markets in different countries and specific sectors with ease. What are Exchange Traded Funds or ETFs, Mutual Fund Investment: Safe or Not, How to Invest in the Stock Market , What is a Demat Account,

Taper Tantrum in the Cards, Pressure in the emerging market space sparked off memories of the 2013 taper tantrum. This year looks to be a repetition of those days. U.S. 10-Year Treasury bond yields crossed 3% in late April for the first time since January 2014. J.P. The logic is if economic growth stays steady and inflation picks up, the Fed may act faster than expected.

Notably, the Fed believes that the economy is likely to attain the central bank’s 2% goal in the medium term. In particular, the U.S. U.S. dollar relatively more compelling. Bank of America Merrill Lynch noted that the greenback is likely to ascend versus EM currencies as developing-nation central banks have been unwilling to hike rates.

April has been a downbeat month for emerging market currencies. WisdomTree Emerging Currency Strategy ETF (CEW - Free Report) was down 2.1% in April. Some of the heavily downtrodden EM currencies have been the Turkish lira, South African rand and the Argentine peso (read: EM ETFs: What You Need to Know Before Investing).

Apart from a higher dollar, some country specific issues are also affecting these currencies. For example, Argentina and Turkey are facing blazing inflation pressure. Tiff between the United States and China on the import tariff issue and the likelihood of a trade war are negatives for the EM space this year.