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AllianceBernstein files with the SEC
February 24, 2012--AllianceBernstein has filed a third amended and restated application for exemptive relief with the SEC for actively-managed ETFs.
view filing
Source: SEC.gov
Speculators and Commodity Prices-Redux
February 24, 2012--On March 16, 2011, I spoke to an industry group concerning the impact of speculative activity on commodity prices. Eleven months later, I'm still talking about it, and saying almost precisely the same thing.
Speculators are necessary liquidity providers to our markets, and while they perhaps are not driving prices to uneconomic levels, they certainly have an effect on prices—above and beyond where they might otherwise go—and American consumers and taxpayers are shouldering that burden.
President Obama spoke about rising gas prices yesterday. You can’t turn on the television or the radio without hearing about record high gas prices, and yet the CFTC has not yet been able to implement Congressionally-mandated position limits to put the brakes on excessive speculation in oil and other commodity markets. Meanwhile, trade associations representing Wall Street interests have sued us in federal court in order to impede our imposition of position limits.
So, I find myself repeating—and repeating—the same message: it’s high time to kick it in gear and use the one tool we have to appropriately address high oil and gas prices.
read more
Source: CFTC.gov
Standard & Poor's Announces Changes In The S&P/TSX Canadian Indices
February 24, 2012--Standard & Poor's will make the following changes in the S&P/TSX Canadian Indices:
The $CDN1.10 cash per share offer from Trafigura Beheer B.V. to acquire Iberian Minerals Corp. (TSXVN:IZN) has been accepted by the shareholders of Iberian Minerals.
The company will be removed from the S&P/TSX Venture Composite, Venture Select and Venture 30 Indices effective after the close of Tuesday, February 28, 2012.
Company additions to and deletions from an S&P equity index do not in any way reflect an opinion on the investment merits of the company
Source: Standard & Poor's
iShares Launches Two New Dividend Equity ETFs
February 24, 2012--BlackRock, Inc. today announced that its iShares Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) business, the world's largest manager of ETFs, has launched two new dividend-focused equity funds designed to access the fast-growing emerging markets and Asia/Pacific developed markets. Listed on the NYSE Arca, the funds are the iShares Emerging Markets Dividend Index Fund (NYSEArca: DVYE) and the iShares Asia/Pacific Dividend 30 Index Fund (NYSEArca: DVYA).
The launch of these funds expands the existing suite of iShares dividend ETFs with the goal of delivering a global tool kit of equity income solutions. iShares launched the first US-listed dividend ETF (NYSEArca: DVY) in 2003; the fund currently has over $10 billion in assets 1.
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Source: Standard & Poor's
Dow Jones Indexes To License Two Dividend Indexes For New iShares ETFs
Dow Jones Emerging Markets Select Dividend Index and Dow Jones Asia/Pacific Select Dividend 30 Index
To Serve as the Basis for iShares ETFs to Trade on NYSE Arca
February 24, 2012--Dow Jones Indexes today announced that iShares has licensed the Dow Jones Emerging Markets Select Dividend Index and the Dow Jones Asia/Pacific Select Dividend 30 Index to serve as the basis for two new iShares ETFs.
The ETFs — the iShares Emerging Markets Dividend Index Fund and the iShares Asia/Pacific Dividend 30 Index Fund — begin trading today on NYSE Arca.
The Dow Jones Emerging Markets Select Dividend Index is designed to measure the stock performance of 100 leading dividend-paying emerging markets companies, selected by dividend yield. At the time of its November 2011 launch, Dow Jones Indexes announced the index would be licensed to underlie the iShares Dow Jones Emerging Markets Select Dividend ETF, listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Launched in 2006, the Dow Jones Asia/Pacific Select Dividend 30 Index is designed to measure the performance of 30 top stocks by dividend yield in the Asia/Pacific region, which includes Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore. The Dow Jones Asia/Pacific Select Dividend 30 Index is also licensed to serve as the basis for seven other iShares ETFs, all of which trade on European exchanges.
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Source: Dow Jones Indexes
Standard & Poor's Announces Changes In The S&P/TSX Canadian Indices
February 25, 2012--Standard & Poor's will make the following changes in the S&P/TSX Canadian Indices:
February 24, 2012--The shareholders of European Goldfields Limited (TSX:EGU) have accepted the share exchange offer from Eldorado Gold Corporation (TSX:ELD).
European Goldfields will be removed from the S&P/TSX Composite and Capped Composite, the S&P/TSX Equity and Capped Equity, the S&P/TSX Completion and Equity Completion, the S&P/TSX Global Mining and Global Gold, the S&P/TSX Composite Equal Weight and the S&P/TSX Capped Materials Indices. As a result of the issuance of shares to acquire European Goldfields, the relative weight of Eldorado Gold will increase in the S&P/TSX Composite and Capped Composite, the S&P/TSX Equity and Capped Equity, the S&P/TSX Capped Materials, the S&P/TSX 60, Equity 60 and 60 Capped, the S&P/TSX Global Mining and Global Gold and the S&P/TSX Composite Dividend indices. There will be no weight changes effective in the S&P/TSX 60 130/30 Strategy, the S&P/TSX 60 Equal Weight or the S&P/TSX Composite Equal Weight Indices. These changes will be effective after close on Wednesday, February 29, 2012.
Company additions to and deletions from an S&P equity index do not in any way reflect an opinion on the investment merits of the company
Source: Standard & Poor's
"Unreasonably Feeble"
Opening Statement of Commissioner Scott D. O'Malia Regarding Open Meeting on One Final Rule and One Proposed Rule1
February 23, 2012--Introduction
The latest issue of The Economist features an article titled "Over-regulated America"2 that features as its archetype for excessive and badly-written regulation our own Dodd-Frank Act.
The problem, the article points out, is that rules that sound reasonable on their own may impose a huge collective burden due, in part, to their complexity. Part of the problem is that we, as The Economist points out, are under the impression that we can anticipate and regulate for every eventuality. In our hubris, The Economist warns, our overreaching tends to defeat our good intentions and creates loopholes and perhaps unintentional safe-harbors, leaving our rules ineffectual and subject to abuse. The solution The Economist offers isn’t so unfamiliar, at least to this Commissioner. It is rather simple. It is just that: Rules need to be simple. Echoing President Obama’s 2011 Executive Order 13563 “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review”3 (which applies equally to independent federal agencies such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “Commission” or “CFTC”) per a subsequent Executive Order4), The Economist advises that we ought to cut out the verbiage and focus on writing rules that articulate broad goals and prescribe only what is strictly necessary to achieve them.
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Source: CFTC.gov
CFTC Staff to Host a Two-Day Public Roundtable to Discuss Additional Customer Collateral Protections
February 23, 2012--The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today announced that staff will hold a two-day public roundtable to discuss additional customer collateral protection.
The roundtable is to gather public input on a variety of ideas to further protect customers. The agenda for the roundtable is listed below.
Specifically, day one discussions will focus on issues related to the advisability and practicality of implementing the legal segregation with operational commingling (LSOC) model as the segregation model for collateral posted by futures customers (the Commission has already approved this model for swaps); alternative models for the custody of customer collateral; enhancing futures commission merchant (FCM) controls over the disbursement of customer funds deposited for trading on U.S. futures markets; increasing transparency surrounding an FCM’s holding and investment of customer funds; and lessons learned from commodity brokerage bankruptcy proceedings.
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Source: CFTC.gov
The Bank of New York Mellon Selected As Statewide Custody Provider
February 23, 2012 - The Washington State Treasurer's Office has selected The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) as the next statewide securities custody provider. This appointment is effective April 1, 2012, through March 31, 2016, with an optional three-year extension.
The custody program allows local governments to get the best rate and terms from a single financial institution for custody banking services. It offers significant time savings for local entities because they don’t have to prepare and evaluate requests for proposals (RFPs) or negotiate contracts.
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Source: Washington State Treasurer
U.S. equity funds again have net outflows -Lipper
February 23, 2012--U.S. fund investors sold domestic-focused equities in the week ended Feb. 22, a second
straight week in which selling far outweighed the net new cash
flowing into foreign-focused funds, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper showed on Thursday.
In the latest week, investors pulled a net $2.8 billion from U.S.-domiciled equity funds. Domestic-focused funds accounted for the entire burden of outflows with $3.73 billion in net
redemptions.
In the course of the reporting week, the U.S. benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 stock index rose 1.07 percent.
Exchange traded funds reported net outflows of just over $4 billion. The State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF saw net redemptions of $4.64 billion.
"Most of the flows were pushed by ETFs. We actually saw an inflow into mutual funds, which may be a little bit of a lag on the retail side," said Matthew Lemieux, analyst at Lipper.
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Source: Reuters
