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Latin America: World Bank Experts Confident in Region's Resilience to Global Turmoil
Latin America is in good position to weather the current global turmoil
A new global recession could impact parts of the region
The region's poor are shielded by strong social protection nets
August 10, 2011-- Latin American economies have developed strong immune systems against global contagion but a worsening of the current market turmoil could put those defenses to the test said World Bank Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean, Augusto de la Torre.
“Over the last 20 years the region has experienced a silent economic revolution that has provided a shield against external shocks, as we have witnessed in the previous crisis and those reforms are still in place ,” de la Torre noted.
But he warned that a worsening of the current turbulence -"a global turmoil of immense magnitude”, he said- could impact Latin America’s ability to grow. “Not even the best immune system in the world could withstand these kinds of attacks,” he noted.
Such 'worsening' would materialize if rich economies –Europe, United States, the developed countries– dip into recession once again, de la Torre said. Under this scenario a US slowdown would have a larger impact on its close trade partners, including Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America. Economies linked to China –essentially those in South America– would sustain a lesser impact, provided the Asian giant continues its current high growth trend.
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Source: World Bank
State Street-US ETF Snapshot: July 2011
August 10, 2011--1,108 Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)—with assets totaling $1.1TN—were managed by 36 ETF managers as of July 31, 2011.
Month over month, ETF assets rose $9BN, up 0.8%.
Sizeable gains in the Commodities and Fixed Income asset classes fueled an $8.9BN increase in overall assets in the ETF Industry for July.
ETF Industry Detail
Asset Classes — Overall
While the MSCI EAFE® Index dropped 1.6%, the S&P 500® Index lost 2.0%. Commodities were positive, with the S&P GSCI Index increasing 2.4% and Gold soaring 8.2%. U.S. Bonds were also positive with the Barclays U.S. Treasury and the Barclays U.S. Aggregate Index up 1.8% and 1.6%, respectively.
With $3.9BN of net flows, Commodity assets grew by $12.9BN.
FLOWS
ETF flows topped $13BN in July. Size - Large Cap had the most inflows for the second straight month, drawing $6.0BN. Fixed Income continued to see positive inflows, attracting $2.6BN in July and $18.8BN year-to-date. With $1.9BN leaving the category, Size - Small Cap saw the most significant outflows.
Manager and Fund Detail
The top three managers in the US ETF marketplace were: BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard. Collectively, they account for approximately 83% of the US listed ETF market.
•The top three ETFs in terms of assets for the month were the SPDR S&P 500 [SPY], SPDR Gold Shares [GLD], and Vanguard Emerging Markets [VWO].
visit www.spdrs.com for more info
Source: SSGA
EGShares Launches Fourth Emerging Markets Consumer Fund with ETF Targeting India’s Leading Consumer Companies (NYSE Arca: INCO)
More India Sector Funds Planned For Later This Year
August 10, 2011--Emerging Global Advisors (EGA), an asset management company focused exclusively on emerging markets and the sub-advisor to the EGShares family of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), announced today the successful launch of INCO, a fund targeting a number of India’s leading consumer companies.
INCO, EGA’s fourth emerging markets consumer fund, seeks to replicate the INDXX India Consumer Index, a 30-stock composite of companies in a wide range of industries, including automotive, personal products, media, textiles, apparel, and luxury goods. The fund, which is passively managed, directly owns the stocks in its portfolio and doesn’t use options, swaps, or other derivatives. INCO’s portfolio stocks are listed on India’s National and Bombay stock exchanges, and few can be bought or held directly by US investors.
EGA is committed to developing research-based tools to invest in emerging markets with greater precision than broad indices. The firm has consistently been first to market with ETFs seeking to allow investors to access what EGA believes is the largest single theme in emerging market investing, the rapidly growing ranks of middle class consumers. EGA’s flagship consumer fund is EGShares Emerging Markets Consumer ETF (NYSE Arca: ECON), a multi-country portfolio consisting of some of the leading emerging markets stocks.
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Source: Emerging Global Advisors
Sizemore Capital Management Launches a Tactical ETF Portfolio on Covestor
Mirrored Investing Platform Expands Global Offerings for Retail Investors
August 10, 2011-- Sizemore Capital Management LLC has launched a global ETF investment model on Covestor (http://covestor.com), the mirrored investing platform that enables clients to replicate the trading strategies of proven investors.
The Sizemore Capital Tactical ETF Portfolio, managed by Sizemore Capital Management Chief Investment Officer (www.sizemorecapital.com) and Sizemore Investment Letter (http://sizemoreletter.com) founder and editor, Charles Sizemore, is a Global Macro ETF model with a strong contrarian value focus.
The model utilizes all major asset classes, including U.S. and global equities, emerging market equities, bonds, currencies and commodities, as market conditions warrant. The model attempts to allocate to those asset classes the manager believes to be undervalued while avoiding or selling those asset classes deemed to be overvalued.
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Source: Sizemore Capital Management LLC
CFTC.gov Financial Data for Futures Commission Merchants Update
August 10, 2011--Selected FCM financial data as of June 30, 2011 (from reports filed by August 01, 2011) is now available.
view updates
Source: CFTC.gov
ETF managers beat a path to the patent office
August 10, 2011--The rapid pace of innovation and increasing competitive pressures have a number of exchange traded fund innovators flocking to the patent office for protection.
In the past year, the US Patent and Trademark Office issued 10 patents to five firms for structures, computer systems and technologies for building and trading exchange traded products. That compares to only one such patent issued in 2005.
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Source: FT.com
Invesco Canada Ltd. today introduced the latest addition to its PowerShares® Funds family.
August 9, 2011--PowerShares QQQ Class* gives investors exposure to the U.S.-listed PowerShares QQQ (NASDAQ: QQQ), one of the world's largest and most actively traded ETFs (exchange-traded funds). This ETF provides access to the 100 largest U.S. and international non-financial companies listed on The NASDAQ Stock Market based on market capitalization.
"Through our new Fund, investors can complement and diversify their portfolios with sector exposure that differs from that of the S&P/TSX Composite Index, which is heavily concentrated in the financials, materials and energy sectors," said Michael Cooke, Head of Distribution, PowerShares Canada.
Additional benefits of PowerShares QQQ Class include:
U.S.-dollar hedging that lets investors be confident that their investments won't be affected by changes in the value of the Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar, as the underlying ETF hedges substantially all of its U.S.-dollar exposure**
Greater tax efficiency because the Fund is offered in the corporate structure, allowing for switches between funds in the same corporation on a tax-deferred basis Now featuring 21 funds across a range of sectors and asset classes, PowerShares® Funds are innovative investment solutions that conveniently bring the many benefits of exchange-traded funds to the mutual fund structure, providing all Canadian advisors and their clients with access to PowerShares index-based products.
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Source: Invesco
Federal Open Market Committee Statement
August 9, 2011--Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in June indicates that economic growth so far this year has been considerably slower than the Committee had expected. Indicators suggest a deterioration in overall labor market conditions in recent months, and the unemployment rate has moved up. Household spending has flattened out, investment in nonresidential structures is still weak, and the housing sector remains depressed. However, business investment in equipment and software continues to expand. Temporary factors, including the damping effect of higher food and energy prices on consumer purchasing power and spending as well as supply chain disruptions associated with the tragic events in Japan, appear to account for only some of the recent weakness in economic activity.
Inflation picked up earlier in the year, mainly reflecting higher prices for some commodities and imported goods, as well as the supply chain disruptions. More recently, inflation has moderated as prices of energy and some commodities have declined from their earlier peaks. Longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable.
Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability. The Committee now expects a somewhat slower pace of recovery over coming quarters than it did at the time of the previous meeting and anticipates that the unemployment rate will decline only gradually toward levels that the Committee judges to be consistent with its dual mandate. Moreover, downside risks to the economic outlook have increased. The Committee also anticipates that inflation will settle, over coming quarters, at levels at or below those consistent with the Committee's dual mandate as the effects of past energy and other commodity price increases dissipate further. However, the Committee will continue to pay close attention to the evolution of inflation and inflation expectations.
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Source: FBR
XTF Data Now Available on RIMES
August 9, 2011--RIMES Technologies, the award-winning benchmark data service provider, today announced that it has become the first data integrator to offer ETF ratings and analytical data from XTF, the global research and advisory firm dedicated to helping investors harness the power of Exchange Traded Funds.
XTF offers a focused range of technical and fundamental research, financial services and technologies that help investors understand the role ETFs play in enhancing investment returns and managing risks; they developed a quantitative, transparent, rules-based ETF ratings process which is rapidly becoming the industry standard by which all ETFs can be evaluated and compared. XTF offers the most comprehensive and analytical ETF data available today.
The XTF database evaluates the structural integrity and investment metric of every ETF including all costs, liquidity, tracking error, returns and risk. XTF also maintains the complete listing of every US-listed ETF and every component and component weight back to inception for every ETF on a daily basis. The data includes all rebalancing, cash components, excluded assets, and distributions automatically adjusted for on a daily basis, together with the Total Return of the ETF and the Total Return of the corresponding underlying index on a daily basis. ETFs are added and corresponding data made available usually by the first day of trading.
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Source: XTF
Deutsche Bank's db-X Opens NYSE Arca on August 9
August 9, 2011--Deutsche Bank's db-X Group will ring the opening bell to commence trading on NYSE Arca today. The opening ceremony commemorates the launch of the db-X Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) platform in the United States.
On June 9, 2011, Deutsche Bank launched the db-X US platform with five currency-hedged ETFs designed to provide investors with exposure to international equity markets while at the same time mitigating exposure to fluctuations between the value of the US dollar and selected international currencies. The db-X US platform now consists of the following 10 funds:
db-X MSCI Japan Currency-Hedged Equity Fund (nyse arca:DBJP)
db-X MSCI Brazil Currency-Hedged Equity Fund (nyse arca:DBBR)
db-X MSCI Canada Currency-Hedged Equity Fund (nyse arca:DBCN)
db-X MSCI EAFE Currency-Hedged Equity Fund (nyse arca:DBEF)
db-X MSCI Emerging Markets Currency Hedged Equity Fund (nyse arca:DBEM)
db-X 2010 Target Date Fund (nyse arca:TDD)
db-X 2020 Target Date Fund (nyse arca:TDH)
db-X 2030 Target Date Fund (nyse arca:TDN)
db-X 2040 Target Date Fund (nyse arca:TDV)
db-X In-Target Date Fund (nyse arca:TDX)
"Deutsche Bank has been effectively providing US investors with a variety of innovative exchange traded products across asset classes for over five years," said Martin Kremenstein, Chief Investment Officer of Deutsche Bank's db-X North America business. "With the recent launch of the five currency-hedged ETFs together with the recent rebranding of the five target date ETFs, we are building on the success of our existing ETF platform in the US to offer distinctive solutions to our clients."
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Source: Deutsche Bank
