Americas ETP News
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Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement
December 12, 2012--Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in October suggests that economic activity and employment have continued to expand at a moderate pace in recent months, apart from weather-related disruptions.
Although the unemployment rate has declined somewhat since the summer, it remains elevated. Household spending has continued to advance, and the housing sector has shown further signs of improvement, but growth in business fixed investment has slowed. 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.
Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability. The Committee remains concerned that, without sufficient policy accommodation, economic growth might not be strong enough to generate sustained improvement in labor market conditions. Furthermore, strains in global financial markets continue to pose significant downside risks to the economic outlook. The Committee also anticipates that inflation over the medium term likely will run at or below its 2 percent objective.
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Source: FRB
Gemini's Northern Lights Reach $10B In Assets Under Administration
Gemini's Services Spur Significant Growth For Clients
December 12, 2012--Gemini Fund Services, LLC (Gemini), an engaged partner to independent advisors as a provider of comprehensive, pooled investment solutions, is pleased to announce that Northern Lights shared trusts, which include Northern Lights Fund Trust I, II, III, Northern Lights ETF Trust and Northern Lights Variable Fund Trust, have collectively surpassed $10 billion in assets under administration.
"At a time when investors are showing strong interest in alternative investment vehicles, Gemini's shared trusts provide advisors with a cost-effective way to bring these funds to market," said Andrew Rogers , Chief Executive Officer of Gemini. "With our assistance, many of our clients have grown to such an extent that they have brought multiple funds to market. This asset milestone reflects the substantial progress our clients have made using the services we provide, as well as the increase in demand for the benefits that come with shared trust membership."
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Source: Gemini Fund
S&P Merger Arbitrage Index Launched by S&P Dow Jones Indices
ProShares Licenses Index for ETF
December 12, 2012-- S&P Dow Jones Indices, the world's largest provider of financial market indices, announced today the launch of the S&P Merger Arbitrage Index, which seeks to model a risk arbitrage strategy that exploits commonly observed price changes associated with a global selection of publicly announced mergers, acquisitions or other corporate reorganizations.
The Index has been licensed to ProShares to serve as the basis for an upcoming ProShares ETF.
“The S&P Merger Arbitrage Index aims to address the market’s continued interest in a merger arbitrage strategy says Vinit Srivastava, director of strategy indices at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “This offering expands our family of long-only merger arbitrage indices and further builds our capabilities in the alternative indexing space.”
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Source: S&P Dow Jones Indices
Fidelity Cuts Index Fund Fees, Rivaling Low-Cost ETFs
December 12, 2012--Fidelity Investments is trimming fees at its largest index mutual funds and making some of its lowest-cost options accessible to a larger number of fund shareholders, including those with as little as $2,500 to invest.
The moves announced Tuesday follow recent investment fee cuts involving mutual funds or exchange-traded funds at rivals such as Vanguard, BlackRock and Charles Schwab.
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Source: CNBC
Vanguard's $130 Billion Year
December 11, 2012--The $5 footlong. The $340 laptop. Free two-day shipping. All hallmarks of our economic times.
Vanguard, the 38-year-old low-cost investing pioneer, brings you the Great Deflation.
The fund company is not just having its best year ever. (It shattered that record in September.) The $130.4 billion in deposits in mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that Vanguard has taken in through November is the most ever for the industry, according to data from Strategic Insight. That beats the $129.6 billion that JPMorgan (JPM) clocked, mostly for money market funds, in 2008. This year’s not over.
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Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek
NASDAQ OMX Adds Consumer Demand Data to Its Machine-Readable News Service
U.S. Consumer Demand Index Data is Delivered First by NASDAQ OMX Event-Driven Analytics
December 11, 2012--The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:NDAQ), parent of the world's first electronic stock market, today announced U.S. consumer demand data is now delivered by NASDAQ OMX Event-Driven Analytics, a leading provider of machine-readable economic news to financial institutions and trading firms.
The U.S. Consumer Demand Index, which predicts developments in American consumer spending several months in advance with a high degree of certainty, is delivered via Event-Driven Analytics five minutes before it is distributed to other end-users. This gives Event-Driven Analytics subscribers early insight into valuable information about personal consumption behavior.
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Source: NASDAQ OMX
BATS Exchange Welcomes ProShares ETF
Becomes Second ETF Family to List Products on BATS Exchange
December 11, 2012--BATS Global Markets (BATS), a leading operator of securities markets in the U.S. and Europe, today announced that ProShares, a premier provider of alternative exchange traded funds (ETFs), will list the ProShares Merger ETF on BATS Exchange.
The ProShares Merger ETF is scheduled to begin trading on BATS Exchange on December 13 under the ticker MRGR. The fund is designed to track the performance of the S&P Merger Arbitrage Index, which provides exposure to a global merger arbitrage strategy. The new ETF listing makes ProShares the second ETF family to list on the BATS Exchange.
"We're excited to welcome another respected exchange traded fund family like ProShares to the BATS Exchange as our innovative approach to the ETF listings business continues to attract issuers and investors alike," said BATS Global Markets President and CEO Joe Ratterman.
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Source: BATS Exchange
Market Vectors High-Yield Municipal Index ETF Becomes the First High-Yield Muni ETF to Cross the $1 Billion Asset Threshold
Strong demand for yield together with historically low interest rates have fueled investor demand for municipal funds across the yield curve and credit spectrum
December 11, 2012--Market Vectors High-Yield Municipal Index ETF(NYSE Arca: HYD), has surpassed $1 billion in assets under management (AUM), it was announced.
HYD is the first high-yield municipal bond ETF, and just the fourth municipal bond ETF overall, to pass this threshold. This milestone puts the entire Market Vectors suite of six municipal income ETFs over $2 billion in AUM.
"High yield is far more than a niche in the municipal bond market as it enables traditional as well as certain for-profit issuers to access capital at a lower cost than they otherwise could in the taxable market," said James Colby, Portfolio Manager and Senior Municipal Strategist with Market Vectors ETFs. "More significantly, it is an attractive source of tax-free* yield for investors who seek to augment their income stream in a yield constrained market.
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Source: Daily Finance
CFTC's Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight Issues No-Action Relief Providing an Alternative to Fingerprinting to Establish Fitness of Principals Residing Outside the United States
December 11, 2012--The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (DSIO) today announced the issuance of a no-action letter relating to the fingerprinting requirement under Commission Regulation 3.10(a)(2) for certain principals of Commission registrants.
The no-action letter is in response to requests from market participants for relief from the fingerprinting requirement for principals of Commission registrants where the principals have not resided in the United States since reaching 18 years of age (Non-U.S. Principals).
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Source: CFTC.gov
CFTC's Division of Market Oversight Provides Time-Limited No-Action Relief to Provide Certain Exemptive Relief Consistent With the Expiring July 2012 Exemptive Order
December 11, 2012--The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) Division of Market Oversight (DMO) today announced the issuance of a time-limited no-action letter providing temporary no-action relief consistent with the intent to preserve the regulatory status quo with respect to transactions and persons described in certain paragraphs of the Commission's expiring Second Amendment to July 14, 2011 Order (due to expire on December 31, 2012) and the conditions thereto,
by permitting transactions and relevant persons to continue to operate in compliance with various CEA exemptive and excluding provisions in place prior to July 16, 2011, subject to, among other conditions, various anti-fraud and anti-manipulation prohibitions.
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Source: CFTC.org
