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U.S. International Reserve Position
April 8, 2011--The Treasury Department today released U.S. reserve assets data for the latest week. As indicated in this table, U.S. reserve assets totaled $141,066 million as of the end of that week, compared to $135,413 million as of the end of the prior week.
I. Official reserve assets and other foreign currency assets (approximate market value, in US millions)
I. Official reserve assets and other foreign currency assets (approximate market value, in US millions)
|
April 4, 2011 | |||
A. Official reserve assets (in US millions unless otherwise specified) 1 |
141,066 | |||
(1) Foreign currency reserves (in convertible foreign currencies) |
Euro |
Yen |
Total | |
(a) Securities |
9,880 |
15,465 |
25,345 | |
of which: issuer headquartered in reporting country but located abroad |
0 | |||
(b) total currency and deposits with: |
||||
(i) other national central banks, BIS and IMF |
14,986 |
6,626 |
21,613 | |
ii) banks headquartered in the reporting country |
0 | |||
of which: located abroad |
0 | |||
(iii) banks headquartered outside the reporting country |
0 | |||
of which: located in the reporting country |
0 | |||
(2) IMF reserve position 2 |
19,320 | |||
(3) SDRs 2 |
58,465 | |||
(4) gold (including gold deposits and, if appropriate, gold swapped) 3 |
11,041 | |||
--volume in millions of fine troy ounces |
261.499 | |||
(5) other reserve assets (specify) |
5,283 | |||
--financial derivatives |
||||
--loans to nonbank nonresidents |
||||
--other (foreign currency assets invested through reverse repurchase agreements) |
5,283 | |||
B. Other foreign currency assets (specify) |
||||
--securities not included in official reserve assets |
||||
--deposits not included in official reserve assets |
||||
--loans not included in official reserve assets |
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--financial derivatives not included in official reserve assets |
||||
--gold not included in official reserve assets |
||||
--other |
||||
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Source: US Department of the Treasury
Treasury Department Statement Regarding Decision to Delay Semi-Annual Report to Congress on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policies
April 8, 2011--Treasury today announced that it will delay publication of the Semi-Annual Report to Congress on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policies of our major trading partners in light of several upcoming, high-level international meetings
the G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting April 14-15, 2011; the Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank April 16-17, 2011; and the third U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) in May.
Treasury last published the semi-annual report on February 4, 2011.
Source: US Department of the Treasury
Commission Announces a Roundtable Discussion Regarding Money Market Funds and Systemic Risk
April 8, 2011 - The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that it will host a roundtable discussion in May on money market funds and systemic risk. The roundtable will include participants from the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC).
The roundtable will take place on May 10, 2011, and will provide a forum for various stakeholders in money market funds to exchange views on the potential effectiveness of certain options in mitigating systemic risks associated with money market funds. These will include, but are not limited to, options raised in the President’s Working Group report on possible money market fund reforms that was issued in October 2010 (http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Documents/10.21%20PWG%20Report%20Final.pdf).
Roundtable panelists are expected to include sponsors of money market funds, short-term debt issuers, investors, and the academic community. A list of participants will be published closer to the date of the roundtable.
read more
Source: CFTC.gov
Nasdaq plays cost-cutting card
April 7, 2011--Nasdaq OMX believes that it has a significant advantage over its rivals in its attempt to win the favour of NYSE Euronext – a proven ability to cut costs.
Nasdaq, which along with the Intercontinental Exchange bid $11.3bn for NYSE Euronext believes that it can cut the costs of running NYSE by $710m by combining like-for-like US stock exchanges.
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Source: FT.com
State Street Global Advisors Debuts SPDR® Barclays Capital Issuer Scored Corporate Bond Exchange Traded Fund
State Street Global Advisors to Launch Issuer Scored Corporate Index Strategy
April 7, 2011--State Street Global Advisors (SSgA)*, the asset management business of State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT), today announced the launch of the SPDR® Barclays Capital Issuer Scored Corporate Bond Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) (Symbol: CBND). The new ETF provides access to a new corporate bond indexing methodology. SSgA will soon launch its Issuer Scored Corporate Index Strategy to further enhance the firm’s fixed income offering, which includes more than $3811 billion in assets globally.
Designed to provide an alternative to market value weighted index strategies, the SPDR Barclays Capital Issuer Scored Corporate Bond ETF (Symbol: CBND) seeks to track the performance of the Barclays Capital Issuer Scored Corporate Index. The Index includes publicly issued US dollar-denominated corporate issues that are rated investment grade and have $250 million or more of par amount outstanding. Individual issuers in the Index are weighted using the following quantitative measures: return on assets, interest coverage and current ratio. Rebalancing based on these ratios occurs every six months on the last business day of March and September.
“Despite some compression in spreads over the past year, corporate credit remains a very attractive asset class for investors,” said Kevin Anderson, global chief investment officer for Fixed Income and Currency at State Street Global Advisors. “The SPDR Barclays Capital Issuer Scored Corporate Bond ETF and forthcoming SSgA Issuer Scored Corporate Index Strategy strengthen our fixed income offering by providing investors and advisors with solutions that address the concerns some have with the allocation of capital in existing corporate credit index strategies.”
The SPDR Barclays Capital Issuer Scored Corporate Bond ETF began trading on the NYSE Arca on April 7, 2011, and the SSgA Issuer Scored Corporate Index Strategy will soon be available to eligible institutional investors.
“The launch of the SPDR Barclays Capital Issuer Scored Corporate Bond ETF marks the start of a new chapter in fixed income investing,” said James Ross, senior managing director and global head of SPDR Exchange Traded Funds at State Street Global Advisors. “A testament to our commitment to developing innovative SPDR ETFs, CBND can help investors diversify their fixed income holdings with an indexing strategy that provides an effective, transparent means of capturing the sources of corporate bond returns.”
Source: State Street Global Advisors
Standard & Poor's Announces Changes In The S&P/TSX Canadian Indices
April 7, 2011--Standard & Poor's Canadian Index Operations announces the following index changes:
The 5-Year rate reset 1st Preferred shares, Series 24, of National Bank of Canada (TSX:NA.PR.O) are the subject of a $C28.03 cash per share offer and will be removed from the S&P/TSX North American Preferred Stock Index
and the S&P/TSX Preferred Share Index after the close of Monday, April 11, 2011.
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 & Poors
BNY Mellon ADR Index Monthly Performance Review is Now Available
April 7, 2011--The BNY Mellon ADR Index Monthly Performance Review is now available.
view report
Source: BNY Mellon
Managing Abundance to Avoid a Bust in Latin America
April 7, 2011-EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Exceptional global circumstances have produced a double bonanza of easy foreign financing and high terms of trade for Latin America (LA), particularly for commodity exporters—favorable conditions that will not last forever. Managing this abundance will be critical to avoiding a
boom-bust cycle. This note explores the sources of these double tailwinds, the problems and vulnerabilities they can engender in LA, and how to build an appropriate policy response.
Persistent double tailwinds, with risks of an abrupt end. A Global Liquidity Flood: Building on capital flow “pull” factors associated with improved fundamentals in emerging markets (EMs) and a likely sustained shift in investors’ portfolios, the combination of low interest rates in advanced
economies (AEs) and investors’ higher risk tolerance is a strong “push” factor that will continue for
some time, but could revert hastily once AEs’ recovery gains footing. Economic and political constraints in AEs have led them to lean strongly on easy monetary policy. At the same time, some key EMs are limiting the adjustment of their current account balances—by maintaining broad capital
account restrictions and heavy exchange rate intervention—leaving others to receive higher capital inflows and contribute more to the restoration and rebalancing of global demand. A Terms of Trade Bonanza: As demand by systemic EMs has pushed up commodity prices, LA is enjoying strong terms of trade, raising issues in many ways similar to easy foreign financing. A key risk for the region is a sharp reversal of these two favorable external conditions following, e.g., a large oil price shock, rapid monetary tightening in AEs, or a global slowdown coupled with heightened risk aversion.
view Managing Abundance to Avoid a Bust in Latin America paper
Source: IMF
Dow Jones Indexes, UBS Add Eight Commodity Indexes to Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index Family
New Subindexes to Offer Investors Opportunity To Exclude Specific Individual Commodities
April 7, 2011–Dow Jones Indexes and UBS Investment Bank today announced they are adding eight commodity subindexes to the Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index family that measure an opportunity set excluding commodities such as agriculture, livestock or grains.
Also launching as subindexes of the Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Indexessm family are indexes that exclude the other major commodity sectors within the broad index: industrial metals, precious metals, soft commodities, petroleum products and agriculture/livestock.
“These new subindexes measure commodity markets from the perspective of investors that want zero exposure to certain sectors,” said Michael A. Petronella, President, Dow Jones Indexes.
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Source: Dow Jones Indexes
Crime and Violence: A Staggering Toll on Central American Development
April 7, 2011 – Growing crime and violence in Central America not only have an immediate human and social toll, they also pose a tremendous threat to development potential in the region. Today, it is estimated that these sources of instability may decrease regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 8 percent, once health, institutional, private security, and material expenses are accounted for.
According to “Crime and Violence in Central America: A Development Challenge,” a World Bank report released today at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a 10 percent reduction in homicide rates could boost annual economic growth per capita by as much as one full percentage point of GDP, in those Central American countries with the most homicides.
As it stands now, however, much of the region is headed in the opposite direction. Conditions in some areas of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras are so extreme -- with nearly 1 homicides per 1000 inhabitants – they have undermined the prospects of peace and stability that emerged following the resolution of the region‘s civil wars. Meanwhile in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama, crime and violence levels are significantly lower, but their steady rise in recent years emerges as a serious concern.
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Source: World Bank
