Global ETF News Older than One Year
Stress hormone a key player in financial crises
February 17, 2014--Scientists studying levels of the stress hormone cortisol in financial traders say that appetite for risk may be "physiologically-driven" by the body's response to cortisol and that stress could be a trigger for market instability.
Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the new study is the first to show that personal financial risk preferences fluctuate substantially, and these fluctuations may be linked to hormone response.
Source: Scienceagogo.com
Latest ETFs leave index-trackers in the dust
February 17, 2014--Oh, how exchange traded funds have changed. ETFs have evolved from simple securities that track indexes to complicated "smart beta" structures designed to outsmart the index.
"The toolbox of products that are available to investors in the U.S. and Canada have grown phenomenally over the past couple years,” says Deborah Fuhr, partner and co-founder of Britain-based ETFGI LLP. Her company researches and consults on a database of 4,700 exchange traded products
Source: The Globe and Mail
UPDATE 2-Vitol CEO injects urgency into Brent Benchmark debate
Dwindling supply underpinning Brent is "major problem"
Platts says more crudes may be needed in 2-5 years
New Brent tweaks announced by Platts, starting in June
February 17, 2014--The Brent crude global oil benchmark needs fundamental and immediate reform due to dwindling North Sea output, the world's biggest oil trader said on Monday.
The comments by Vitol Chief Executive Ian Taylor add urgency to a long-running debate about Brent, which critics have said is vulnerable to manipulation. European authorities last year started a probe into suspected manipulation of oil prices.
Source: Reuters
A wobble, but market-tracker funds on course for growth
February 17, 2014--Sharp withdrawals from equity, currency and commodity tracking funds as emerging markets sold off in early 2014 looks no more than a bump in the road for such vehicles as they expand their share of assets under management.
Long used by banks and other institutions, exchange-traded products (ETPs-which let investors track a range of underlying markets for a small fraction of the fees charged by managed funds-are increasingly being sold to cost-conscious retail savers in a move helped along by regulatory change.
Source: Reuters
'Golden anchor' drags down ETF Securities
February 16, 2014--ETF Securities wants to chart a different course this year, following a tough 2013 when the big sell-off in gold weighed heavily on the commodities-focused fund manager.
Following his return in December from a round-the-world sailing voyage, Mark Weeks has resumed the responsibilities of chief executive. He has promised that ETF Securities will develop a business model that is less dependent on gold.
Source: FT.com
Big four fund groups summoned to talks over size
February 16, 2014--BlackRock, Fidelity, Pimco and Vanguard were summoned to meet global regulators in London last week to discuss whether large asset managers should be considered as systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs).
Such classification would subject the four managers to much greater scrutiny and require costly changes to their operating models.
Source: FT.com
KCG Releases January 2014 Trade Volumes
February 14, 2014--KCG Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: KCG) today released trade volumes for the month of January 2014.
In Market Making, KCG averaged $28.0 billion dollar volume traded, 8.4 billion shares traded, and 4.1 million trades per day in U.S. equities.
In Global Execution Services:
Agency-based algorithmic and EMS trade volumes through Knight Direct and GETAlpha averaged an aggregate 272.4 million shares traded per day in U.S. equities
Source: KCG
DECPG Weekly Brief -February 14, 2014
February 14, 2014--Several developing country currencies have depreciated since the start of the year, but a majority remained stable under
renewed market pressures. Despite the market turbulence, gross capital flows to developing countries picked-up in
January, driven by record volumes of sovereign and corporate bond issuances.
In a further positive development, recent business sentiment indicators generally point to strengthening activity in developing countries.
Developing-country currencies came under downward pressure in January amid a generalized correction in global equity markets. Changing market sentiment towards the end of January led to a sizeable retrenchment of global equity markets, with both high-income and developing country markets seeing losses of around 6 percent between January 21 and February 5. The sell-off was provoked by a 16 percent devaluation of the Argentine peso, and resulted in rising exchange-rate pressures on a number of emerging economies. While 45 percent of developing country currencies lost more than 1 percent against the US dollar, a majority of them were stable or even appreciated. More recently, Kazakhstan devaluated its exchange rate by around 20 percent against the dollar after seeing a rapid contraction in foreign reserves and under the influence of a weak Russian ruble. Currencies in Ukraine and Ghana also lost significant ground, despite the introduction of currency controls to limit capital outflows. The Turkish lira was initially hard hit, but an aggressive tightening of monetary policy later stabilized it. Market pressures seem to have abated in recent days.
Source: World Bank
SPDR Gold Fund holdings rise to a more than 7-week high
February 14, 2014--The world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund saw a spike in holdings of the metal this week, on the heels of a more than 4% weekly climb in prices for the precious metal.
The SPDR Gold Trust GLD +0.18% shows an increase to 25.925 million ounces as of Thursday, up 0.9% from Wednesday and at its highest total level since Dec. 20.
Source: MarketWatch
Diverging Markets: European stocks have led other global equity markets and emerging markets have significantly underperformed since the U.S. Fed began taper talk in June 2013, according to Russell Indexes.
February 14, 2014--As new U.S. Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen testifies on the current state of the U.S. economy and U.S. Fed policy this week in Washington, Russell Indexes reflect a divergence in global equity markets since former Fed chair Ben Bernanke first announced the Fed tapering policy in June of last year.
From June 19, 2013, Bernanke's initial tapering announcement, through February 12, 2014, the Russell Eurozone Index returned 18.2%, followed closely by the more broadly represented Russell Developed Europe Index at 15.2%. The Russell 3000(R) Index, which represents the entire universe of U.S. stocks, returned 11.1% for this same time period, with U.S. small-cap stocks, as represented by the Russell 2000(R)Index (12.6%), outperforming U.S. large-cap stocks, as reflected by the Russell 1000(R) Index (11.0%).
Source: Russell Investments
