Five of MSN Money's 10 surprising Exchange Traded Fund facts are interesting, the other five, not so much. Here are the good ones:

• 163 versus 134. The raw number of ETFs launched in the past six months versus the number of ETFs launched in first 10 years (1993 to 2003) of the ETF business' existence.
• 23 of 93. Of the 93 international ETFs on the market, only 23 are diversified funds that invest across a range of countries, regions and sectors. The rest are country- or region-specific or international-sector funds.
• 0.67%. The average expense ratio of ETFs launched in the past six months, many of which were leveraged index funds; sector, industry or niche funds (ophthalmology, for instance); or offerings tracking specialized or custom-made benchmarks.
• 0.45%. The average expense ratio of all the ETFs launched before December 2006.
• $284 billion versus $196 billion. Barclays' share of the ETF industry versus everybody else's.

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The conservative portfolio was up just 0.44% in May as bonds fell on rising rates. Stocks were very strong in May with the S&P 500 up almost 3.5%. Vanguard U.S. Value (VUVLX) and Janus Research (JARFX) were up 3.58% and 4.21% respectively, but the hits to bonds funds like Harbor (HABDX) down 1.38% largely wiped out the stock gains.