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iShares files with the SEC
July 8, 2010--iShares has filed a post-effective amendment, registration statement with the SEC for
iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Consumer Discretionary Sector Index Fund
Ticker: AXDI
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NFA looks to regulate funds operating managed futures
July 8, 2010--A US regulator is seeking to extend its reach to cover mutual funds sold to retail investors which operate an arcane hedge fund trading strategy called managed futures.
The National Futures Association, an industry-funded watchdog for futures investors, wants to re-assert oversight of mutual funds that primarily trade futures contracts, leveraged derivatives whose value is linked to the future value of markets from commodities to interest rates. The association had these powers until 2003.
The proposal comes as small investors see a proliferation of mutual funds specialising in futures as a means of diversifying from equities or bonds or betting on a long-term rise in commodity prices. AQR, the quantitative fund manager, and JPMorgan are among the companies whose mutual funds are targeted in the NFA proposal.
AdvisorShares Set to Launch First Actively Managed Long/Short ETF
July 8, 2010-- AdvisorShares Investments, LLC, a leading sponsor of actively managed ETFs, today announced that it will begin trading in the industry's first actively managed long/short ETF, the Mars Hill Global Relative Value ETF /quotes/comstock/13*!grv (GRV 25.49, +0.14, +0.55%) tomorrow, July 9th. GRV is sub-advised by Mars Hill Partners, LLC, an SEC-registered Investment Adviser and an affiliate of private wealth manager Huntley Thatcher Ellsworth, Ltd.
GRV employs a "Relative Value" approach created and managed by Mars Hill Partners, which combines long positions in the most attractive country, sector and industry ETFs, with an equal dollar amount short in the least attractive country, sector and industry ETFs. This core long/short portfolio construction is designed to reduce downside volatility and drawdown risk caused by the directional influence of the global equity markets and instead strives to profit from the performance spread between its long and short positions. These relative value spreads are prevalent throughout both rising and falling market environments, enabling GRV to potentially generate more consistent returns over time than a conventional long-only approach.
"GRV has an institutional-caliber investment strategy that is designed to pursue consistent positive absolute returns regardless of the direction of the stock market or interest rates. We are excited to bring investors access to this compelling investment strategy through an actively managed ETF," said Noah Hamman, CEO and Founder of AdvisorShares.
Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Mars Hill Partners, Jason Huntley said, "We are very excited to partner with AdvisorShares to package and launch GRV given the underlying merits of our long/short investment strategy when combined with the daily liquidity, fully transparent and tax efficiency benefits of an NYSE-listed ETF. Historically, strategies like ours have been accessible primarily through separate accounts or private hedge funds, neither of which offers anywhere near the benefits of the ETF package which includes transparency."
NYSE Amex Options To Add Five Firms To E-Specialist Program - Timber Hill, Integral Derivatives, Wolverine Trading, Morgan Stanley And Susquehanna Securities - Adding Liquidity, Increasing Trading Opportunities And Narrowing Spreads For All Customers
July 8, 2010--NYSE Amex options today announced that on Monday, July 12 it will add five new firms to its e-Specialist program that initially began in February 2010. As new e-Specialists in approximately 650 option classes, Timber Hill, Integral Derivatives, Wolverine Trading, Morgan Stanley and Susquehanna Securities will be subject to NYSE Amex options market making conditions and heightened quoting requirements. e-Specialists are off-floor market makers that function alongside traditional Specialists and Market Makers within the exchange’s state-of-the-art hybrid trading platform to provide liquidity across more than 240,000 options series based on 1,932 underlying securities.
“The launch and expansion of the e-Specialist program is another innovative way that NYSE Amex options is working with its order flow providers, customers and market participants to create a uniquely competitive market model,” said Steve Crutchfield , CEO, NYSE Amex. “We are proud to welcome Timber Hill, Integral Derivatives, Wolverine, Morgan Stanley and Susquehanna Securities to the e-Specialist program. This benefits our customers and the broader market by increasing liquidity, enhancing efficiency and creating a diverse, highly-active trading environment for all our customers.”
These firms join the five existing e-Specialist firms of Citadel Securities, Goldman Sachs, UBS Securities, Citigroup Derivatives Markets, and Barclays Capital. NYSE Amex options provides customers with a distinct, customer-driven hybrid marketplace that offers exceptional technology combined with a proven open-outcry trading environment. As one of two competing U.S. options exchanges operated by NYSE Euronext, it provides customers with a valuable platform to trade options with reliability, transparency and efficiency. NYSE Euronext's U.S. options exchanges, NYSE Arca and NYSE Amex options utilize industry leading open outcry trading facilities with an advanced electronic trading platform capable of processing 400,000 orders and 3,500,000 quotes per second with 2 millisecond acknowledgment (ACK) times.
Invesco PowerShares and Deutsche Bank Launch First Leveraged Bond Exchange Traded Notes
July 8, 2010--NEW YORK, Jul 07, 2010 -- On June 29 Invesco PowerShares Capital Management, LLC and Deutsche Bank launched two Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs) linked to CBOT Ultra T-Bond futures ("Ultra Bond futures").
PowerShares DB Ultra Bond ETNs
Deutsche Bank has issued two ETNs linked to the Ultra Bond futures. The ETNs are traded on the NYSE Arca, listed as follows: PowerShares DB 3x Long 25+ Year Treasury Bond ETN: (NYSE Arca:
LBND)
PowerShares DB 3x Short 25+ Year Treasury Bond ETN: (NYSE Arca:
SBND)
The PowerShares DB US Treasury ETNs are the first exchange-traded products to provide investors with a cost effective and convenient way to take a leveraged long or leveraged short view on the performance of Ultra Bond futures. The ETNs are senior unsecured obligations issued by Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch, linked to the month-over-month performance of a total return version of the DB Long US Treasury Bond Futures Index or the DB Short US Treasury Bond Futures Index.
The DB Long US Treasury Bond Futures Index measures the performance of a long investment in Ultra Bonds futures and the DB Short US Treasury Bond Futures Index measures the performance of a short investment in Ultra Bond futures.
"We are pleased to bring our successful monthly leverage rebalancing methodology to fixed-income products, and to offer investors a simple way to take a long or short view on Ultra Bond futures for the first time," said Martin Kremenstein, Director in Global Markets Structuring.
The underlying assets of Ultra Bond futures are Treasury bonds with at least 25 years remaining term to maturity. The returns of each ETN are obtained by combining three times the returns of the relevant index with the returns of the T-Bill index, less investor fees. Investors can buy and sell the ETNs on the NYSE Arca exchange or receive a cash payment at the scheduled maturity or early redemption based on the performance of the index less investor fees.
For more information about Deutsche Bank's exchange-traded products business in the U.S., please visit: http://www.dbfunds.db.com.
EGShares Launches Industry’s First India Small Cap Exchange-Traded Fund
July 7, 2010--)--EGShares, the first dedicated emerging markets sector ETF provider, today launched the India Small Cap ETF (NYSE: SCIN), the first ETF that offers investors access to small capitalization companies in the world’s largest democracy. The Emerging Global Shares Indxx India Small Cap Index Fund invests in 75 publicly traded companies with market capitalizations between $100 million and $2 billion and is designed to track the performance of the Indxx India Small Cap Index.
“We’re very excited about launching the world’s first India Small Cap ETF,” said Robert Holderith, President and CEO of EGShares. “We believe that until today, India exposure through ETFs has been limited and the offerings have been very similar. With almost zero overlap in holdings vs the current ETF offerings and a meaningfully different industry allocation, our fund attempts to provide exposure to some of the fastest growing companies in one of the world’s fastest growing economies.”
The Indxx India Small Cap Index is a 75 stock, free float adjusted market capitalization index designed to measure the market performance of equities in the small cap sector of India. It has a mean free float market capitalization of $632 million and the fund charges a net expense ratio of 0.85% (gross expense ratio: 1.58%)1. The top five industry weights of the Index, as of 6/30/10, were Commercial Banks (12.59%), IT Services (8.67%), Software (7.78%), Textiles, Apparel & Luxury Goods (6.22%), and Metals & Mining (5.95%), followed by Real Estate Management & Development, Food Products, Chemicals, Media, and Construction & Engineering.
According to Richard Kang, CIO and Director of Research at Emerging Global Advisors, “investors are searching for returns in this time of great economic uncertainty and we believe that in developed markets, return expectations for capital appreciation of equities as well as fixed income and dividend yields are low, while correlations among core asset classes remain high. As a result we expect investors of all types to allocate more to emerging markets whether it’s through equity, fixed income or currency. One example is India, an emerging market economy that has grown at an impressive rate, expanding by about 8.5% over the past five years. Roughly half a billion new middle class consumers are expected to rise from relative poverty over the next 15 years, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, which makes for favorable ramifications for businesses large and small that are looking to accelerate growth. As the western world restructures to essentially save more and spend less, the Indian government may allow their people to similarly transition in the opposite direction. We think domestic consumption and infrastructure spending are key themes to watch.”
The EGShares India Small Cap ETF is the seventh ETF to be introduced by EGShares. Other funds include the EGShares Brazil Infrastructure ETF (BRXX), EGShares China Infrastructure ETF (CHXX), EGShares Emerging Markets Metals/Mining ETF (EMT), EGShares Emerging Markets Energy ETF (EEO), EGShares Emerging Markets Financials ETF (EFN) and the EGShares Emerging Markets Large Cap ETF (EEG).
State Street to launch active funds, rebrand ETF range
July 7, 2010-- State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) is planning to launch a sectoral healthcare equity fund in a joint venture with ABP that will target the pharmaceutical, biotech and medtech industries.
The strategy will focus on the "growth drivers" of demographics, science and technology, aiming to take advantage of low sector valuations.
The fund will invest in blue-chip companies based North America (53%), Europe (38%) and Asia and the rest of the world (9%).
The manager – Sectoral Asset Management, a company solely focused on running global healthcare portfolios – will have the power to use derivatives, but be unable to borrow money or use derivatives to create leverage.
SSgA is also lining up a global managed volatility fund that will aim to deliver strong returns over full market cycles.
The fund will aim to achieve low beta and low total volatility relative to the global equity market while minimising downside risk.
NSX Releases June 2010 ETF Data Reports
July 7, 2010--Highlights from the June report include:
Assets in U.S. listed Exchange-Traded Funds (ETF) and Exchange-Traded Notes (ETN) totaled approximately $787.5 billion at June 2010 month-end, an increase of approximately 30% over June 2009 month-end when assets totaled $603.2 billion.
At the end of June 2010, the number of listed products reached 1009, topping 1000 for the first time, compared to 837 listed products at June 2009 month-end.
June 2010 net cash inflows from all ETFs/ETNs totaled approximately $12.3 billion, with year-to-date net cash inflows totaling $39.9 billion, which is a record for the first six months of the year.
Total Fixed Income and Total U.S Equity led all categories with net cash inflows of $4.9 billion and $4.3 billion respectively for June 2010.
Visit www.nsx.com for mjore info.
Exchange-Traded Funds US ETF Weekly Update-Morgan Stanley
July 7, 2010--Weekly Flows: $8.6 Billion Net Outflows
- Largest Net Outflow of Year
BlackRock Cuts Fee on Gold ETF to 25 bps
5 PowerShares ETFs Undergo Index & Name Changes
US-Listed ETFs: Estimated Flows by Market Segment
ETFs had net cash outflows of $8.6 billion last week; assets down to $765 billion
- Largest net outflow of 2010; flows driven by US-focused Equity ETFs
- SPY had net outflows of $6.9 bln; 3rd straight week of large net outflows
Over 13-week period, Fixed Income and Commodity ETFs have strongest inflows
US-Listed ETFs: Estimated Largest Flows by Individual ETF
IWM has the largest net inflow for US ETFs at $766 million last week
- SPY posts largest net outflow ($6.9 bln) for week; YTD has posted net outflow of $15.6 bln.
- Over 13-week period, GLD generated strongest net inflow, taking in $7.3 bln.
Data Unchanged: Based on data as of 6/15/10
Largest increase in short positions in QQQQ
- Roughly $500 million in additional short interest
Largest decline in short interest in GLD - Roughly $800 million in reduced short interest
U.S. International Reserve Position
July 7, 2010--The Treasury Department today released U.S. reserve assets data for the latest week. As indicated in this table, U.S. reserve assets totaled $126,620 million as of the end of that week, compared to $124, 970 million as of the end of the prior week.
I. Official reserve assets and other foreign currency assets (approximate market value, in US millions)
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July 2, 2010 |
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A. Official reserve assets (in US millions unless otherwise specified) 1 |
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126,620 |
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(1) Foreign currency reserves (in convertible foreign currencies) |
Euro |
Yen |
Total |
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(a) Securities |
8,954 |
14,817 |
23,771 |
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of which: issuer headquartered in reporting country but located abroad |
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0 |
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(b) total currency and deposits with: |
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(i) other national central banks, BIS and IMF |
13,122 |
7,276 |
20,398 |
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ii) banks headquartered in the reporting country |
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0 |
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of which: located abroad |
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0 |
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(iii) banks headquartered outside the reporting country |
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0 |
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of which: located in the reporting country |
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0 |
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(2) IMF reserve position 2 |
11,734 |
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(3) SDRs 2 |
55,038 |
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(4) gold (including gold deposits and, if appropriate, gold swapped) 3 |
11,041 |
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--volume in millions of fine troy ounces |
261.499 |
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(5) other reserve assets (specify) |
4,638 |
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--financial derivatives |
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--loans to nonbank nonresidents |
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--other (foreign currency assets invested through reverse repurchase agreements) |
4,638 |
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B. Other foreign currency assets (specify) |
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--securities not included in official reserve assets |
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--deposits not included in official reserve assets |
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--loans not included in official reserve assets |
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--financial derivatives not included in official reserve assets |
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--gold not included in official reserve assets |
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--other |
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Legg Mason files with the SEC
July 7, 2010--Legg Mason has filed an aplication with the SEC for exemptive relief -actively managed ETF.
view filing
China rules out ‘nuclear option’ on T-bills
July 7, 2010--China has delivered a qualified vote of confidence in the dollar and US financial markets, ruling out the “nuclear option” of dumping its huge holdings of US government debt accumulated over the last decade.
But the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, which administers China’s $2450bn in reserves, the largest in the world, also called on Washington and other governments to pursue “responsible” economic policies.
The statement on Wednesday, one of a series that Safe has issued in recent days in an apparent effort to address criticism about its lack of transparency, also played down the chances of China making major further investments in gold.
Wall Street rallies on State Street outlook
July 7, 2010--US stocks pushed higher for the second straight session on Wednesday as a positive earnings outlook from State Street boosted financials and outweighed concerns about the forthcoming earnings season.
There is a perception that the market is cheap relative to other asset classes and has been oversold over the past two months, said Sean Kraus, chief investment officer at Pasadena-based CitizensTrust.
“We’re seeing a dichotomy between those who think the market is cheap – they point to low price-to- earnings multiples – and those who are looking at the slowdown on a macro-economic level,” he said.
Standard & Poor's Announces Changes In The S&P/TSX Canadian Indices
July 7, 2010--Standard & Poor's Canadian Index Operations announces the following index changes:
Crescent Point Energy Corp. (TSX:CPG) has announced the completion of the acquisition of Shelter Bay Energy Inc.
The relative weight of Crescent Point will increase in the S&P/TSX Composite and Capped Composite, the S&P/TSX Equity and Capped Equity, the S&P/TSX Completion and Equity Completion and the S&P/TSX Capped Energy indices to reflect the issuance of new shares as part of the transaction, which will be effective after the close of Wednesday, July 14, 2010.
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.
Emerging Markets Week in Review -6/28/2010 - 7/2/2010
July 6, 2010--The Dow Jones Emerging Markets Composite Index declined for its second consecutive week, down 3.62% over concerns of slower than expected global growth in the second half of 2010. Utilities and Health Care, two of the more defensive sectors, were the best performing groups, down only 0.33% and 1.43% respectively. Materials led the market down for the week, losing 6.02%, and has been the worst performing sector so far in 2010.
As the second quarter came to a close last week, all emerging market sectors were negative for the period despite optimism that developing regions will continue to buoy weaker growth from their developed counterparts.
