Americas ETP News
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NASDAQ Announces Annual Changes to the Dividend Achievers Indexes
January 31, 2013-- The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (NDAQ), parent of the world's first electronic stock market and a leading index provider, today announced the results of the annual reconstitution of the Dividend Achievers(TM) Indexes.
To view the 2013 Dividend Achievers Reconstitution file and a downloadable file of each index's constituents, visit http://www.indxis.com/Reconstitutions.html.
NASDAQ OMX recently acquired the index business of Mergent, Inc., including Indxis -- an expert provider of index calculation services to a wide spectrum of clients in the financial services industry. As a result of this acquisition, NASDAQ OMX Global Indexes now owns the Dividend Achievers Indexes, the leading index family that tracks companies with strong long-term dividend growth. NASDAQ OMX Global Indexes is now one of the largest providers of dividend-themed indexes based on benchmarked assets.
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Source: NASDAQ OMX
Questrade to offer commission free ETF purchases
Questrade has made its mark offering rock bottom commissions for trading stocks. The trend continues.
January 31, 2013--Questrade made its mark in Canada by offering rock bottom commissions for trading stocks. The online discount broker entered the market in 1999 and has achieved a number of firsts in the industry over the years.
They were the first broker to offer $4.95 stock trades and the first to offer a U.S. RRSP option where you can hold U.S. cash and collect U.S. dividends without being forced to convert them to Canadian dollars. In another industry first, Questrade will offer free commission on any ETF purchases starting February 1st.
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Source: The Star
IMF Working paper-External Conditions and Debt Sustainability in Latin America
January 30, 2013--Summary: Highly favorable external conditions have helped Latin America strengthen its economic fundamentals over the last decade. But, has the region built enough buffers to guard itself from a weakening of the external environment?
This paper addresses this question by developing a simple framework that integrates econometric estimates of the effect of global factors on key domestic variables that determine public and external debt dynamics, with the IMF‘s standard debt sustainability framework. Results suggest that, while some countries in the region are well placed to withstand moderate or even large shocks, many would benefit from having stronger buffers to be in a position to deploy countercyclical policies, especially under tail events. External sustainability, on the other hand, does not appear to be a source of concern for most countries.
view the IMF Working paper-External Conditions and Debt Sustainability in Latin America
Source: IMF
Knight Looks to Sell Fixed-Income Units .
January 30, 2013--Knight Capital Group Inc. plans to sell some assets and has cut staff ahead of the trading firm's planned sale to a rival, according to people close to the company.
Bank of America, Merrill Lynch has been hired to explore a sale of Knight's bond-trading and reverse-mortgage units, part of a division that has struggled for years to turn a steady profit, these people said.
The effort to sell the two units would mark the biggest step so far to refocus Knight on its core business of buying and selling shares, following a years-long push by Chief Executive Officer Thomas Joyce to diversify into asset classes such as bonds and currencies.
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Source: Wall Street Journal
Horizons ETFs announces final valuations for terminated ETFs
January 30, 2013--Horizons Exchange Traded Funds Inc. ("Horizons ETFs") and its affiliate Horizons ETFs Management ( Canada ) Inc. (the "Manager") have previously announced, by way of a press release dated November 16, 2012, that certain exchange traded funds ("ETFs") will be terminated effective upon the close of business today, January 18, 2013.
The ETFs being terminated (collectively, the "Terminated ETFs"), with their respective final net asset values ("Final NAV") per unit, are as follows:
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Source: Horizons Exchange Traded Funds Inc.
National Income and Product Accounts Gross Domestic Product, 4th quarter and annual 2012 (advance estimate)
January 30, 2013--Real gross domestic product--the output of goods and services produced by labor and property
located in the United States--decreased at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 3.1 percent.
The Bureau emphasized that the fourth-quarter advance estimate released today is based on
source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see the box on page 4
and the "Comparisons of Revisions to GDP" on page 5). The "second" estimate for the fourth quarter,
based on more complete data, will be released on February 28, 2013.
The decrease in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected negative contributions from private inventory investment, federal government spending, and exports that were partly offset by positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), nonresidential fixed investment, and residential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.
The downturn in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected downturns in private inventory investment, in federal government spending, in exports, and in state and local government spending that were partly offset by an upturn in nonresidential fixed investment, a larger decrease in imports, and an acceleration in PCE.
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Source: BEA
Federal Reserve Issues FOMC Statement
January 30, 2013--Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in December suggests that growth in economic activity paused in recent months, in large part because of weather-related disruptions and other transitory factors.
Employment has continued to expand at a moderate pace but the unemployment rate remains elevated. Household spending and business fixed investment advanced, and the housing sector has shown further improvement. Inflation has been running somewhat below the Committee’s longer-run objective, apart from temporary variations that largely reflect fluctuations in energy prices. Longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable.
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Source: FRB
BNY Mellon Classic ADR Index(SM) 18% Return in 2012 Beats S&P 500, Led by Europe
Strong country performance in Europe, Australia, China drive DR index gains, according to BNY Mellon's 2012 DR market update; other milestones set in volatile
January 30, 2013-The BNY Mellon Classic ADR Index posted an 18% return last year, beating the 16% gain by the Standard & Poor's 500 Index of U.S. shares, and reversing a 2011 loss even as overall depositary receipt trading shrank, according to BNY Mellon's year-end report on the DR market.(1)
"The outperformance of the Classic ADR Index is significant, given that overall DR trading value dropped in 2012 and U.S. stocks performed well during a year of political wrangling," said Christopher M. Kearns, deputy CEO of BNY Mellon's Depositary Receipts business. "International portfolio diversification through DRs has offered a viable option to many investors, even as geopolitics led to periods of unsettled markets and made companies cautious about committing capital."
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Source: BNY Mellon
Continued growth for ETPs
January 30, 2013--Having seen a record-breaking year for inflows in 2012, the global Exchange Traded Products (ETP) market is attracting increased investment from institutional, professional and retail investors alike, according to BlackRock.
For Dodd Kittsley, global head of ETP research for BlackRock, ETPs have proven themselves to be a way to access assets classes in a cost-efficient and effective way, whatever the market conditions.
"Hot on the heels of an impressive 2012, the market has continued to grow in the early months of 2013, and we expect this to continue during the rest of this year," he said.
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Source: Money Management
Fitch: index fund, ETF price competition rising for US banks
January 29, 2013--Price competition among providers of mutual funds and
exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is likely to put pressure on investment management
fee growth for U.S. trust and custodial banks, according to Fitch Ratings.
Recent moves by Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab, Blackrock, and other fund managers to reduce index fund and ETF fees paid by increasingly cost-conscious investors will make it difficult for trust banks, such as State Street, Northern Trust,
and Bank of New York Mellon, to push through meaningful fee growth on individual
and institutional customer accounts.
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Source: Reuters
