Global ETF News Older than One Year
Male Investors vs. Female Investors
Studies show men and women could learn from the other's approach
May 3, 2015--When it comes to investing, men sometimes have their ways of doing things, and women have different ways.
And each could learn from the other.
Broad generalizations, of course, are inherently risky. And nobody would suggest that gender drives investment success.
Source: Wall Street Journal
IMF Working paper- How Important are Debt and Growth Expectations for Interest Rates?
May 1, 205--Summary: This paper uses a dataset on private-sector risk aversion as well as expectations of long-run growth and debt to explain trends in implied forward rates on government bonds in the G-7 countries.
The results show, consistent with the literature, that a one-percent rise in the long-run projected debt-to-GDP ratio causes an increase in bond yields of a relatively modest 1-to-6 basis points. Shocks to growth expectations and risk aversion have been comparatively more successful in explaining the behavior of long-term rates. The findings imply that growth policies rather than long-run projections of fiscal outcomes may be more important in helping influence long-term borrowing costs.
view the IMF Working paper- How Important are Debt and Growth Expectations for Interest Rates?
Source: IMF
State Street Global Advisors-Weekly Market Report
May 1, 2015--This Week's Highlights-Economies
The Fed and Bank of Japan leave policy unchanged. GDP growth stalls in the US. Growth slows in Canada and the UK.
Liquidity continues to improve in the eurozone. Industrial production falls again in Japan.
Credit growth is accelerating in Australia. More stimulus likely coming for China. Brazil's central bank tightens but Russia's eases.
Markets
An unsettled week in markets. Equities and G7 government bonds both decline. USD falls for the third straight week.
Oil continues to grind higher.
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Spotlight
The Reserve Bank of Australia is expected to ease. The UK national election is too close to call. A solid payroll gain and lower unemployment is expected in the US. Unemployment likely rises in Canada and Australia.
Source: spdru.com
DECPG Global Weekly
May 1, 2015--Taking Stock
U.S. GDP grew at a slower-than-expected pace in Q1 2015. According to the Commerce Department flash estimate,
the U.S. economy grew by 0.2 percent (q/q saar) in Q1 2015, slowing sharply from Q4's 2.2 percent growth, owing in part to
the harsh winter and the work stoppage at the West Coast ports.
Growth in personal consumption expenditures slowed. Exports fell more-than-expected, reflecting the impact of the strong dollar. Nonresidential fixed investment and government spending dropped. At the same time, U.S. first-time jobless claims fell to 262,000 in the week ended April 25th, the lowest level since April 2000.
Source: World Bank
Data deprivation: another deprivation to end
April 30, 2015--About half the countries studied in the recent paper, Data Deprivation, Another Deprivation to End are deprived of adequate data on poverty.
This is a huge problem because the poor, who often lack political representation and agency, will remain invisible unless objective and properly sampled surveys reveal where they are, and how they’re faring. The lack of data on human and social development should be seen as a form of deprivation, and along with poverty, data deprivation should be eradicated.
view the Data Deprivation Another Deprivation to End report
view the Infographic: Much of the World is Deprived of Poverty Data
Source: World Bank
Bidders circle Russell Investments arm auctioned by LSE-FT
April 29, 2015--At least six bidders are circling Russell Investments, the large US asset manager that is being sold by the London Stock Exchange Group, according to people close to the process.
An auction process for the business, which has $273bn in funds under management and is expected to fetch as much as $1.5bn, is now in the second round.
Source: FT.com
IMF Working paper-Financial Crisis, US Unconventional Monetary Policy and International Spillovers
April 29, 2015-- Summary: We study the impact of the US quantitative easing (QE) on both the emerging and advanced economies, estimating a global vector error-correction model (GVECM) and conducting counterfactual analyses. We focus on the effects of reductions in the US term and corporate spreads. First, US QE measures reducing the US corporate spread appear to be more important than lowering the US term spread.
Second, US QE measures might have prevented episodes of prolonged recession and deflation in the advanced economies. Third, the estimated effects on the emerging economies have been diverse but often larger than those recorded in the US and other advanced economies. The heterogeneous effects from US QE measures indicate unevenly distributed benefits and costs
Source: IMF
Multi-Asset Class Mutual Funds: Can They Time the Market? Evidence from the US, UK and Canada
April 29, 2015--Abstract:
The importance of asset allocation decisions in wealth management is well established. However, given its importance it is perhaps surprising that so little attention has been paid to the question of whether professional fund managers are skillful at timing market movement across asset classes over time.
The timing literature has tended to concentrate on the timing skill of single asset class funds. Using data on US, UK and Canadian multi-asset class funds, we apply two alternative methodologies to identify the asset class timing abilities of managers. Overall, whether we apply a returns-based method or a holdings-based testing approach, we find evidence of only a tiny minority of funds with asset class timing ability.
Source: http://papers.ssrn.com
IMF Working paper-Is Islamic Banking Good for Growth?
April 28, 2015--Summary: The rapid growth of Islamic banking has attracted much attention lately in the economic literature. At the same time, a mature body of the literature has shown that financial development is broadly conducive to economic growth, which raises the question as to whether a similar conclusion holds for Islamic banking.
Against this backdrop, this paper investigates the relationship between Islamic banking development and economic growth in a sample of low and middle income countries, using data over the period 1990-2010. The results show that, notwithstanding its relatively small size compared to the economy and the overall size of the financial system, Islamic banking is positively associated with economic growth even after controlling for various determinants, including the level of financial depth. The results are robust across across different specifications, sample composition and time periods.
view the IMF Working paper-Is Islamic Banking Good for Growth?
Source: IMF
IMF Working paper-Hong Kong's Growth Synchronization with China and the U.S.: A Trend and Cycle Analysis
April 28, 2015--Summary: This paper investigates the synchronization of Hong Kong SAR's economic growth with mainland China and the United States. This paper identifies trends of economic growth based on the permanent income hypothesis.
Specifically, the paper confirms whether real consumption in Hong Kong SAR and mainland China satisfy the permanent income hypothesis, at least in a weak form. It then identifies the permanent and transitory components of income of each economy using a simple state-space model. It uses structural vector autoregression models to analyze how permanent and transitory shocks originating from mainland China and the United States affect the Hong Kong economy, and how such influences evolve over time. The paper's main findings suggest that transitory shocks from the United States remain a major driving force behind Hong Kong SAR's business cycle fluctuations. On the other hand, permanent shocks from mainland China have a larger impact on Hong Kong SAR's trend growth.
Source: IMF
