Global ETF News Older than One Year
Make growth socially inclusive for improved well-being and stronger economies-OECD report
May 5, 2014--But policies to tackle the widening gap between rich and poor will only succeed if they also look beyond income and address better access to high-quality education, health care and public infrastructure, it adds.
The wealthy have overwhelmingly captured the benefits of growth. The average income of the richest 10 percent of the population in OECD countries was nine and a half times higher than that of the poorest 10 percent in 2010, compared with a level seven times higher 25 years ago.
In the United States, the richest 1 percent took 47 percent of total income growth between 1976 and 2007, compared with 37 percent in Canada and around 20 percent in Australia and Britain. The gap between rich and poor has widened even faster since the financial crisis.
view the OECD All on Board: Making Inclusive Growth Happen report
Source: OECD
Healthy, happy and wise', users top priorities as OECD releases its 2014 Better Life Index
May 5, 2014--Japanese users of the Better Life Index (BLI) worry most about safety, Australians seek work-life balance, Latin Americans strive for better education, and Danes want to be happy-user feedback shows as the Index marks its third birthday.
More than 3.6 million people in 184 countries have used the wellbeing barometer to measure and compare their quality of life based on their own priorities. Typically people have used it to compare countries according to the weighting they give to 11 categories ranging from income to the environment.
A new feature for 2014 reveals to users for the first time what more than 60,000 people around the world believe to be the most important factors for quality of life. This living database, viewable via an interactive map, allows policymakers everywhere to see what matters to users of the Better Life Index.
Source: OECD
ETF Securities-Precious Metals Weekly-Precious Metals Decline as US Growth Prospects Improve
May 5, 2014--Strong April US unemployment report overshadows weak Q1 GDP, pushing gold price down. The gold price continued to decline last week as equities recovered despite a
mere 0.1% print for US Q1 GDP, with investors' preferring to focus on the green shoots of spring. Better than expected US unemployment data on Friday with the rate dropping to 6.3% from 6.7%, confirmed what most analysts have been expecting, a pickup in economic
growth following the extremely harsh winter.
The silver price also declined, dropping 2.5% on the week. Palladium bucked the trend adding 1.4% for a year-to-date (YTD) gain of 14.0%. Inflation and inflation expectations remained non-existent as demonstrated by declining bond yields. On the first day of May, the US 30-year bond yield dropped to the lowest yield since June 2013 at 3.41%, down from near 4.0% at the end of 2013.
Gold GOFO rates continued to indicate a tight market with rates ending the week in negative territory out to 6-months. Expanding economic growth with disinflation from such low levels is not usual but appeared to be the state of things at the end of last week, overshadowing Russian aggression fears. Historically, gold has performed best in strong inflationary and deflationary environments but not so well during disinflationary periods. There is not much disinflation left from 1.1% CPI, the YOY level at the end of 2013. .
A lack of resolution of labour dispute in South Africa boosts palladium price.
Source: ETF Securities
Average daily volume of 8,7 million contracts at Eurex Group in April
May 2, 2014--In April, the international derivatives exchanges of Eurex Group recorded an average daily volume of 8, 7 million contracts (April 2013: 9.8 million). Of those, 6.1 million were Eurex Exchange contracts (April 2013: 7.1 million), and 2, 6 million contracts (April 2013: 2.7 million) were traded at the U.S.-based International Securities Exchange (ISE).
In total, 177.2 million contracts were traded, thereof 122.2 million at Eurex Exchange and 54.9 million at the ISE.
In its largest segment -equity index derivatives- Eurex Exchange achieved 47, 6 million contracts (April 2013: 54.3 million). Futures on the EURO STOXX 50 Index stood at 18.6 million contracts and 17.1 million on the index options. Futures on the DAX index totalled 2.1 million contracts while the DAX options reached another 2.6 million contracts.
Source: Eurex
Global flows in a digital age
April 30, 2014--Global flows have been a common thread in economic growth for centuries, since the days of the Silk Road, through the mercantilist and colonial periods and the Industrial Revolution. But today, the movement of goods, services, finance, and people has reached previously unimagined levels. Global flows are creating new degrees of connectedness among economies-and playing an ever-larger role in determining the fate of nations, companies, and individuals; to be unconnected is to fall behind.
Flows of goods, services, and finance reached $26 trillion in 2012, or 36 percent of global GDP, 1.5 times the level in 1990. Now, one in three goods crosses national borders, and more than one-third of financial investments are international transactions. In the next decade, global flows could triple, powered by rising prosperity and participation in the emerging world and by the spread of the Internet and digital technologies. Our scenarios show that global flows could reach $54 trillion to $85 trillion by 2025, more than double or triple their current scale.
Source: McKinsey Global Institute (MGI)
MSCI Completes Sale of ISS
April 30, 2014--MSCI Inc. (NYSE: MSCI), a leading provider of investment decision support tools worldwide, announced today that it has completed the sale of Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. ("ISS"), its wholly-owned subsidiary comprising MSCI's Governance segment, to Vestar Capital Partners for total cash
consideration of $367 million, subject to customary post,closing adjustments.
Source: MSCI
Eurex to launch index futures contracts based on TASE's main index in June
New contracts available as of 9 June 2014
The Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) and Eurex Exchange, the international derivatives marketplace and part of Deutsche Börse Group, announced today during a joint press briefing, that Eurex Exchange will list index futures based on the TA-25, Israel's blue chip index, as of 9 June 2014.
The TA-25 index is one of the most heavily traded regional equity indexes. Eurex Exchange's TA-25 index futures will be denominated in US dollars.
Source: Eurex
IMF Working paper-Monetary Policy Coordination and the Role of Central Banks
April 29, 2014--Summary: The unconventional monetary policies (UMPs) pursued by the advanced economies (AEs) have posed macroeconomic challenges for the emerging market economies (EMEs) through volatile capital flows and exchange rates. AE central banks need to acknowledge and appreciate the spillovers resulting from such UMPs.
Central banks of the AEs, who have set up standing mutual swap facilities, should explore similar arrangements with other significant EMEs with appropriate risk mitigation measures. These initiatives could do much to actually curb volatility in global financial markets and hence in capital flows to EMEs, thus obviating the need for defensive policy actions on the part of EMEs.
IMF Working paper-Monetary Policy Coordination and the Role of Central Banks
Source: IMF
Advancing Investment in Infrastructure for the Digital Economy
Delivering Digital Infrastructure: Advancing the Internet Economy, a World Economic Forum report, examines the technological, commercial and policy challenges associated with digital infrastructure
Recommendations address spectrum availability, IP interconnection disputes, and policies and regulations
April 29, 2014--The World Economic Forum released today a new report that examines the long-term growth of the digital economy and the viability of the infrastructure that supports it.
The report, Delivering Digital Infrastructure: Advancing the Internet Economy, produced in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group, focuses on current threats to digital infrastructure-including fixed and mobile internet infrastructure, telecommunications equipment and devices, and cloud infrastructure-in the United States, Europe and emerging markets.
view the WEF-Delivering Digital Infrastructure-Advancing the Internet Economy report
Source: WEF (World Economic Forum)
2011 International Comparison Program Summary Results Release Compares the Real Size of the World Economies
April 29, 2014--The International Comparison Program (ICP) released new data today showing that the world economy produced goods and services worth over $90 trillion in 2011, and that almost half of the world's total output came from low and middle income countries.
Under the authority of the United Nations Statistical Commission, the 2011 round of ICP covered 199 economies-the most extensive effort to measure Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs) across countries ever. ICP 2011 estimates benefited from a number of methodological improvements over past efforts to calculate PPPs.
view the Main Results for the Largest Economies and Economies with Highest and Lowest GDP per capita
Source: World Bank
