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CFTC Joint Presentation for Meeting of the Joint CFTC-SEC Advisory Committee on Emerging Regulatory Issues
May 24, 2010--The presentation of todays meeting is available for viewing.
view presentation
Source: CFTC.gov
Semi-Annual Changes to the NASDAQ OMX CRD Global Sustainability 50 Index
May 24, 2010 -- The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:NDAQ) and CRD Analytics announced today the results of the semi-annual re-ranking of the NASDAQ OMX CRD Global Sustainability 50 Index (Nasdaq:QCRD), which will become effective prior to market open on Monday, May 24, 2010.
The following twelve securities will be added to the Index: Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A), Banco Bradesco S.A. (NYSE:BBD), Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (NYSE:BBVA), Bank Of Montreal (NYSE:BMO), Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY), The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE:DOW), Infosys Technologies Limited (Nasdaq:INFY), Eli Lilly & Company (NYSE:LLY), Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT), Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO), Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. - Petrobras (NYSE:PBR), UBS AG (NYSE:UBS).
The NASDAQ OMX CRD Global Sustainability 50 Index is an equally weighted equity index that serves as a benchmark for stocks of companies that are taking a leadership role in sustainability performance reporting and are traded on a major U.S. stock exchange. The Index is made up of companies that have taken a leadership role in disclosing their carbon footprint, energy usage, water consumption, hazardous and non-hazardous waste, employee safety, workforce diversity, management composition and community investing. These are companies that are voluntarily disclosing their current environmental, social and governance risks as well as their revenue opportunities and how it will affect future performance. The securities must also meet other eligibility criteria which include minimum requirements for market value, average daily share volume, and price. The Index is evaluated on a semi-annual basis in May and November. For more information about the NASDAQ OMX CRD Global Sustainability 50 Index, including detailed eligibility criteria, visit https://indexes.nasdaqomx.com/.
"More and more companies and investors are recognizing that sustainability as a business and investment strategy will define success in the Twenty-First Century," said Michael Muyot, President and Founder of CRD Analytics. "The NASDAQ OMX CRD Global Sustainability 50 Index, based on our SmartView analytics platform, is a key tool for tracking the performance of sustainability leaders. Hats off to those companies added to the index -- as they have raised the bar."
"The re-ranking of the NASDAQ OMX CRD Global Sustainability 50 Index ensures its relevance as the most widely followed benchmark for companies that are on the leading edge of self-reporting sustainability activities," said NASDAQ OMX Executive Vice President John Jacobs. "This index is a powerful tool for those who want to capture the investment opportunities created by the economic shift toward global sustainability."
As a result of the re-ranking, the following twelve securities will be removed from the Index: ABB Ltd (NYSE:ABB), Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE:ABX), BP p.l.c. (NYSE:BP), BT Group plc (NYSE:BT), Reed Elsevier PLC (NYSE:ENL), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE), Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS-A), Royal Bank Of Canada (NYSE:RY), Siemens Aktiengesellschaft (NYSE:SI), Statoil ASA (NYSE:STO), Vodafone Group PLC (Nasdaq:VOD), Westpac Banking Corporation (NYSE:WBK).
Source: NASDAQ OMX
CFTC official admits data still collected by fax
May 21, 2010--Trades may be carried out faster than the blink of an eye but the watchdog charged with overseeing the US futures markets has admitted that it still receives market-related data by fax that is then entered in to its systems by hand.
Scott O’Malia, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, admitted that the agency had been in a “perpetual game of technological catch-up” when it came to keeping track of derivatives markets.
His comments came the same day that CFTC chairman Gary Gensler told a Senate banking committee hearing into the May 6 “flash crash” on Wall Street that the CFTC was investigating the role of algorithmic trading in futures markets – one of the biggest technology developments of recent times.
The CFTC said it would re-instate a special technology committee to help it stay abreast of new technologies to help it better oversee the markets. The flash crash has shone a spotlight on the ability of regulators and market venues to keep track of markets increasingly driven by high-speed trading.
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Source: FT.com
U.S. Department of the Treasury Economic Statistics - Monthly Data Update
May 21, 2010--U.S. Department of the Treasury Economic Statistics - Monthly Data Update is now available.
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Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury
Exchange-Traded Funds International Equity: EM Allocation Update
May 21, 2010--May 21, 2010--Morgan Stanley's Global Emerging Market (EM) Strategy team, led by Jonathan Garner, maintains an EM-based country allocation model. The model is adjusted monthly and seeks to outperform the MSCI EM Index on a 6- to 12-month time horizon.
The team made three relative rating changes to the model this month. Relative to the MSCI EM Index, Turkey moves to an equal-weight recommendation from an underweight while Malaysia and Thailand are both downgraded from overweight to equal-weight recommendations. Additionally, because of MSCI's decision to transition Israel from emerging to developed market status, effective May 27, 2010, Garner has initiated coverage of Colombia with an equal-weight rating and moved Israel to the "Other" bucket in his model.
ETFs are available for most countries in Garner's model. Currently, US-listed ETFs are available for approximately 99% of the market cap of the MSCI EM Index and 99% of the recommended Morgan Stanley weights. ETFs may offer an efficient way to access EMs. The costs associated with them may be lower than the costs traditionally associated with other EM investments. Moreover, ETFs trade on exchanges, provide intra-day liquidity, many have options available, and most ETFs can be easily shorted.
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Source: Morgan Stanley
CFTC.gov Commitments of Traders Reports Update
May 21, 2010--The current reports for the week of May 18, 2010 are now available.
view current report
Source: CFTC.gov
CBOE's S&P 500 Index Options (SPX) Volume Beats All-Time Daily High: - Nearly 2.19 Million SPX Contracts Change Hands On Thursday
Total Trading Volume At CBOE Marks Second Most Active Day Ever - ETF Options Set New Daily Record
May 21, 2010--The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) today reported that trading volume in S&P 500® Index options (SPX) contracts on Thursday, May 20 established a new daily record with 2,187,004 contracts traded.
Thursday's SPX record surpasses the previous daily volume record of 2,170,870 contracts traded on October 6, 2008. Additionally, on Wednesday, May 19, SPX volume totaled 2,146,625 contracts, the third-highest volume day in the contract's history.
Thursday marked CBOE's second-most-active trading day overall as Exchange volume totaled 10,191,893 contracts. On May 6, CBOE registered its highest volume day ever with 10,571,568 contracts traded.
ETF options at CBOE also recorded a new single-day volume record on Thursday, as 3,528,232 contracts changed hands, surpassing the May 6 record of 3,422,162 ETF options traded.
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Source: CBOE Group
ScotiaMocatta Pulls IPO Prospectus for Copper Backed ETF
May 21, 2010--Last year we wrote about plans to launch physical metal backed Electronic Traded Commodity Funds led by Canada’s ScotiaMocatta, a unit of Bank of Nova Scotia, Copper Fund. As Andy Home in a Reuters article said, the fund was to be the first of its kind, offering an ETF backed with physical copper.
The template has worked extraordinarily well in the precious metals sector, so much so that the SPDR Gold Trust fund is the world’s sixth-largest holder of physical gold. ETFs have facilitated and accentuated retail investor interest in gold, becoming a major fundamental driver in their own right. The same was hoped and expected for copper, and if it worked for copper the argument went why not aluminum or nickel? All metals play a role as a store of value in times of volatility, admittedly precious metals more than any but copper has enjoyed dramatic price appreciation because it is considered a bell-weather for the global recovery, as a measure of emerging market demand. Well therein lies the problem, ScotiaMocatta’s Copper ETF has been pulled prior to launch, and for the second time.
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Source: Metal Miner
Statement on the Passage of Financial Market Regulatory Reform
May 21, 2010--“With the senate's historic vote last evening to pass sweeping measures to rein in Wall Street excesses, there will be a new wind blowing. Not since the Great Depression have we needed this kind of fundamental change in market oversight, and our Senate leadership has provided it.
I am confident the conference will move forward quickly to get a bill in front of the president for his signature, a bill that will pull back from the deregulatory excesses of the past decade and move us toward more consumer-oriented regulation--oversight and enforcement that protects the people of this country from paying unfair prices for basic goods and services--this is an absolutely necessary first step in getting our country back to financial health and safety.”
Source: CFTC.gov
iShares files with the SEC
May 20, 2010--iShares has filed a registration statement with the SEC for
iShares MSCI Poland Investable Market Index Fund ETF
view filing
Source: SEC.gov
