Global ETF News Older than One Year
Japan Exchange CEO eyes takeovers in certain segments-Boersen-Zeitung
February 14, 2015--Tokyo bourse operator Japan Exchange Group Inc (JPX) (8697.T) is considering takeovers in certain areas of its business but is not looking at large cross-border exchange mergers, its chief executive told a German newspaper.
"I am not thinking about direct takeovers between Tokyo and Europe," Atsushi Saito told Boersen-Zeitung in an interview published on Saturday.
Source: Reuters
DECPG Global Weekly-February 13, 2015
February 13, 2015--Taking Stock
EU and Greece failed to find agreement over bailout conditions. Unable to arrive to an agreement over the bailout
conditions for Greece, Eurozone finance ministers, along with the heads of the International Monetary Fund and the
European Central Bank, pledged to keep talking in the coming days with the hope of coming up with a plan at their next meeting.
Meanwhile, the ECB extended another €5bn in emergency loans to Greek banks on the fears that a spate of withdrawals could leave Greek lenders short of funding. Despite the breakdown in talks, Greek bond yields fell. Yields on the 3-year bond plunged 232 basis points to about 18 per cent, while those on the 10-year bond dropped by 46 basis points to 9.97 percent. Meanwhile, Greek GDP contracted 0.2 percent (q/q) in Q4, sharply down from Q3's 0.7 percent expansion.
Source: World Bank
7 Emerging Market Shifts Investors Must Watch
February 13, 2015--Brown Brothers Harriman points to seven recent developments in developing economies that mark important shifts for investors:
1) The Mexican central bank has taken rate cuts off the table (for now.)
2) Venezuela's modification of the FX regime seems like more of the same.
3) Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's popularity fell off a cliff.
The latest polls showed that those who rate her government positively fell from 42% to 23%-the worst ratings for a president since 1998, when President Cardoso devalued the currency.
Moreover, 77% of the people interviewed believe that she knew about the corruption at Petrobras (PBR).
4) The Indian political landscape his shifted: The ruling BJP lost badly in the Delhi local elections, calling into question just how far Prime Minister Narendra Modi can push his reform agenda nationally.
Source: Barron's
Gold Demand Trends Full Year 2014
February 12, 2015--Executive summary:
This section of the report considers the main themes to have emerged in global gold demand and supply during 2014.
Full year gold demand totalled 3,923.7 tonnes in 2014 (from 4,087.6t in 2013). The 4% year-on-year drop was unsurprising as consumer demand was never likely to match the previous year's record surge.
Source: World Gold Council
Warning-Falling (U.S. Treasury) Objects
February 12, 2015--The remarkable collapse in the price of oil-a key global price that has virtually halved in the space of just a few months-has received a lot of attention lately.
Meanwhile, another significant shift has taken place in recent months that is just as surprising and has wide-reaching global implications-the dramatic drop in long-term U.S. Treasury bond yields. The last time we saw 10-year Treasury bond yields this low was in early May 2013. As many will remember, this didn’t last long and when it corrected, it set off a burst of volatility across emerging markets.
Source: IMF
HK's CSOP expanding ETF business to US
February 12, 2015--Hong Kong-based CSOP Asset Management has been busy this year with new fund launches in the territory, where it is actively trying to drum up more retail business in a bid to get more institutional investors interested.
Simultaneously, it is laying the groundwork for a US business, aiming for a first-half listing for an exchange traded fund in the market.
Source: FT.com
IMF Working Paper-Asset Bubbles: Re-thinking Policy for the Age of Asset Management
February 11, 2015--Summary: In distilling a vast literature spanning the rational- irrational divide, this paper offers reflections on why asset bubbles continue to threaten economic stability despite financial markets becoming more informationally-efficient, more complete, and more heavily influenced by sophisticated (i.e. presumably rational) institutional investors.
Candidate explanations for bubble persistence-such as limits to learning, frictional limits to arbitrage, and behavioral errors-seem unsatisfactory as they are inconsistent with the aforementioned trends impacting global capital markets.
In lieu of the short-term nature of the asset owner-manager relationship, and the momentum bias inherent in financial benchmarks, I argue that the business risk of asset managers acts as strong motivation for institutional herding and ‘rational bubble-riding.’ Two key policy implications follow. First, procyclicality could intensify as institutional assets under management continue to grow. Second, remedial policies should extend beyond the standard suite of macroprudential and monetary measures to include time-invariant policies targeted at the cause (not just symptom) of the problem. Prominent among these should be reforms addressing principal-agent contract design and the implementation of financial benchmarks.
view the IMF Working Paper-Asset Bubbles: Re-thinking Policy for the Age of Asset Management
Source: IMF
Moody's negative on SSGA ETF fee cut
February 10, 2015--State Street Global Advisors' decision last week to lower fees on 41 exchange-traded funds is credit negative for the firm and a handful of US ETF providers,
ratings agency Moody's said Monday, pointing to an ongoing "commoditization" of the products and an increasingly competitive market.
Source: Financial News
BlackRock ETP Landscape: Currency-hedged equity surges
February 10, 2015--JANUARY ETP FLOWS HIGHLIGHTED BY STRENGTH FOR NON-U.S. DEVELOPED MARKETS EQUITIES AND FIXED INCOME
Global asset gathering moderated from recent months to $11.6bn, with significant inflows for Europe equity and corporate bonds diverging from heavy redemptions for U.S. large cap and EM equity
The more aggressive than expected ECB quantitative easing announcement was well received by the market, contributing to record flows of $8.4bn for pan-European equity and $13.7bn for Europe-listed ETPs
Exchange rate movements, particularly U.S. dollar appreciation against the euro, led to a new monthly high of $6.9bn for currency-hedged ETP flows, which were concentrated in Europe and EAFE equity exposures
Equity market volatility, uncertainty surrounding global growth and the ECB stimulus news all supported ongoing demand for fixed income funds, which gathered $13.0bn, and kept downward pressure on interest rates
Source: BlackRock- ETP Research
Research: Fixed Income and Commodity ETFs/ETPs Have 3rd Best Month In January
February 9, 2015--ETFGI's new research finds overall net new asset (NNA) flows in January were US$12.2 Bn. Net inflows of US$13.3 Bn into fixed income products and US$5.2 Bn of net inflows of into commodity ETFs/ETPs globally ranked as the third largest months on record for both asset classes while equity ETFs/ETPs suffered net outflows of US$8.0 Bn in January.
The global ETF/ETP industry had 5,585 ETFs/ETPs, with 10,770 listings, assets of US$2.77 trillion, from 242 providers listed on 63 exchanges in 51 countries at the end of January 2015 according to preliminary data from ETFGI's end January 2015 global ETF and ETP industry insights report.
Source: Nasdaq.com
