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Old Mutual Global Index Trackers Launches GlobalShares FTSE Developed Countries ex US ETF -- GSD
Second ETF Joins Recently Launched GlobalShares Developed Countries ex US Fund -- GSR
February 12, 2010--Old Mutual Global Index Trackers, a South Africa based index tracker fund manager specializing in Developed Countries ex US, announced today the opening of trading for its second ETF available to American investors: GlobalShares FTSE Developed Countries ex US Fund.
GSD was designed to offer American investors the opportunity to gain exposure to 23 developed countries, including Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, France and Germany without overlapping their U.S. stock portfolios. The Fund seeks to replicate the performance of the FTSE Developed ex US Index, which is comprised of over 1,400 stocks and may be attractive to those seeking the middle ground between a still nervous domestic economy and more uncertain Developed Countries ex US.
GlobalShares products are being introduced in order to offer a complementary and diversified suite of investment options for retail and institutional investors. GSD can be used in conjunction with GlobalShares Developed Countries ex US Fund (GSR) to dynamically adjust asset allocation between developed and Developed Countries ex US.
"After the successful launch of GSR, we are excited to introduce GSD and will be rolling out an additional three ETFs within the coming weeks," said Tendai Musikavanhu, CEO of Old Mutual Global Index Trackers. "We continue to seek to deliver top level product and diversification, while also maintaining our commitment to providing low-cost investor access to emerging and developed markets outside the U.S."
CME Group and BM&FBOVESPA to Become Global Preferred Strategic Partners, Jointly Develop a New Multi-Asset Class Trading Platform and to Expand Cross-Equity Ownership
February 12, 2010-- CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, and BM&FBOVESPA, the world's third largest exchange company by market capitalization, today announced they have agreed to become Global Preferred Strategic Partners and to develop a new multi-asset class electronic trading platform that will be deployed by BM&FBOVESPA for use in its cash equities and derivatives markets.
CME Group and BM&FBOVESPA intend to work together as Global Preferred Strategic Partners to advance their mutual interests in globalizing their respective businesses through jointly identifying and pursuing opportunities for strategic investments and partnerships with other international exchanges. As part of the expanded partnership, BM&FBOVESPA will increase its ownership interest in CME Group to 5%, the same approximate stake CME Group currently has in BM&FBOVESPA.
The new multi-asset class electronic trading platform will be jointly developed by both exchanges and will be used by BM&FBOVESPA in its cash equities and derivatives markets, and both exchanges will have the ability to license the platform to other exchanges internationally. The new platform will offer customers an industry leading technology platform for global derivatives and equities trading, with the additional benefit of having access to an integrated derivatives and equities technology solution. The companies have agreed to an exclusive negotiation period to enter into definitive agreements. Development of the new system will begin immediately and is expected to launch in early 2011.
DB Index Research -- Weekly ETF Reports -- US
February 11, 2010--Highlights
ETF Volume
US ETF turnover rose by 12.7% to US$74.3bn in the previous week. Turnover in the S&P 500 SPDR ("Spider") was US$25.6bn. The PowerShares QQQ Nasdaq 100 had turnover of US$6.1bn followed by iShares Russell 2000 with turnover of US$4.1bn.
There was one new ETF launched in the last week. PIMCO launched one new Bond ETFs on NYSE Arca.
In the previous week, average daily turnover in the Large Cap, US Sector, Leveraged and Global Regional products was US$33.8bn (15.3%), US$11.7bn (8.5%), US$8.3bn (14.2%) and US$5.4bn (10.7%) respectively.
Among the Emerging country ETFs, iShares MSCI Brazil ETF turnover was US$1,469m followed by iShares FTSE/Xinhua China ETF with turnover of US$1,320m. In non-US developed market flows, iShares MSCI Japan had turnover of US$327m. In non-domestic regional flows, emerging market turnover was US$3.9bn and developed markets regional flows EAFE had turnover of US$1.2bn.
Assets under Management (AUM)
Total assets under management for equity based ETFs declined by 4.1% in the previous week, AUM were US$546.4bn.
To request a copy of the report
State Street Appointed by Charles Schwab to Service Newly Launched Exchange Traded Funds
February 11, 2010--State Street Corporation (NYSE:STT - News), one of the world’s leading providers of financial services to institutional investors, announced today that it has been appointed by Charles Schwab to service its newly launched family of exchange-traded funds.
State Street will provide the eight new funds with custody, fund accounting, fund administration and transfer agency services. State Street has provided Schwab with custody, fund accounting, fund administration and securities lending services since 2005.
“We appointed State Street as our service provider because they emerged as the clear leader for servicing our complex exchange-traded fund structures,” said George Pereira, senior vice president of Charles Schwab Investment Management. “With the launch of our new funds, which carry industry-leading low expense ratios and free trade commissions at Schwab, we needed a service provider with scale and one that could dedicate resources to ensuring all of the needs of our fund structures were met.”
State Street has been a pioneer in the development and servicing of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) having launched the first ever ETF in 1993 in partnership with the American Stock Exchange. State Street utilizes its leading-edge technology, consultative client approach and flexible servicing model to service ETFs and currently services nearly half of all ETF assets worldwide.
“Investors continue to embrace ETFs for additional liquidity, risk management and global diversification for their investment portfolios,” said Alan Greene, executive vice president of State Street’s US investor services business. “We are delighted to expand our servicing relationship with Schwab and value the confidence they place in us to offer the best solution set for their new funds.”
State Street recently launched its latest publication on ETFs as part of its Vision series of thought-leadership papers intended to further increase awareness and understanding of key themes and trends facing institutional investors industrywide. The paper, titled “Exchange Traded Funds: Maximizing the Opportunities for Institutional Investors,” examines the benefits of these investment tools and the best method to maximize them in institutional investors’ investment portfolios.
Old Mutual Trust Lists GlobalShares FTSE Developed Countries ex US Fund on NYSE Arca
February 11, 2010--NYSE Euronext (NYX) announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, NYSE Arca, today began trading the GlobalShares FTSE Developed Countries ex US Fund(Ticker: GSD). The ETF is advised by Old Mutual Global Index Trackers (Pty) Limited, whose parent company is Old Mutual plc.
The Fund seeks investment results that correspond (before fees and expenses) generally to the performance of the equity index called the FTSE Developed Markets ex US Index, which is designed to track the performance of large and mid-cap companies providing coverage of developed markets, excluding the United States.
Six ProShares UltraPro ETFs List on NYSE Arca
February 11, 2010--NYSE Euronext (NYX) announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, NYSE Arca, today began trading six ProShares UltraPro Funds. The ETFs are sponsored by ProShares.
The Six ProShares UltraPro funds are:
ProShares UltraPro Dow30 (NYSE Arca: UDOW)
ProShares UltraPro Short Dow30 (NYSE Arca: SDOW)
ProShares UltraPro MidCap400 (NYSE Arca: UMDD)
ProShares UltraPro Short MidCap400 (NYSE Arca: SMDD)
ProShares UltraPro Russell2000 (NYSE Arca: URTY)
ProShares UltraPro Short Russell2000 (NYSE Arca: SRTY)
These funds seek a 300% or -300% return of their indices for a single day, before fees and expenses. Due to the compounding of daily returns, returns over periods other than one day will likely differ in amount and possibly direction from the target returns for the same period. Investors should monitor their holdings consistent with their strategies, as frequently as daily. The funds’ prospectuses describing correlation, leverage and other risks are available at www.proshares.com.
ProShares UltraPro Dow30 This fund seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses that correspond to three times (300%) the daily performance of the Dow Jones Industrial AverageSM, which is a price-weighted index maintained by editors of The Wall Street Journal that includes 30 large-cap, “blue-chip” U.S. stocks, excluding utility and transportation companies.
ProShares UltraPro Short Dow30 This fund seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses that correspond to three times (300%) the inverse (opposite) of the daily performance of the Dow Jones Industrial AverageSM.
ProShares UltraPro MidCap400 This fund seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, that correspond to three times (300%) the daily performance of the S&P MidCap400™ Index (the Index), which is a measure of mid-size company U.S. stock market performance and a float-adjusted market capitalization weighted index of 400 U.S. operating companies and REITs.
ProShares UltraPro Short MidCap400 This fund seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, that correspond to three times (300%) the inverse (opposite) of the daily performance of the S&P MidCap 400 Index®.
ProShares UltraPro Russell2000 This fund seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, that correspond to three times (300%) the daily performance of the Russell 2000® Index, which is a measure of small-cap U.S. stock market performance and a float adjusted market capitalization weighted index containing approximately 2000 of the smallest companies in the Russell 3000® Index (or approximately 8% of the total market capitalization of the Russell 3000® Index), which in turn represents approximately 98% of the investable U.S. equity market.
ProShares UltraPro Short Russell2000
The Fund seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, that correspond to three times (300%) the inverse (opposite) of the daily performance of the Russell 2000 Index®.
Marisa Lago Confirmed as Assistant Secretary for International Markets and Development
February 11, 2010--Marisa Lago was confirmed today by the United States Senate to serve as the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Assistant Secretary for International Markets and Development. In this position, Lago is responsible for leading Treasury's role on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. She will also direct Treasury's portfolio on international financial services regulation, trade, banking and securities, development, technical assistance and climate finance.
"Marisa brings to Treasury extensive expertise in the regulation of financial services internationally and in the negotiation of international agreements. This background will benefit Treasury and help ensure enforcement of high-quality standards across international investment and regulatory issues," said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
Lago most recently served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Empire State Development, where she pushed forward important long-term development projects, including the revitalization of Erie Canal Harbor in Buffalo, the expansion and renovation of the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, and the construction of Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Immediately prior to joining New York State government, Lago spent five years as the Global Head of Compliance for Citigroup's corporate and investment bank. Before joining Citigroup, Lago headed the Office of International Affairs for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. As the head of the office responsible for all aspects of the SEC's international activities, Lago played a key role in numerous international initiatives involving trade in financial services, international accounting standards, securities activities on the internet and enhancing financial regulation in off-shore financial centers.
As Boston's Chief Economic Development Officer from 1994 to 1997, Lago headed the Boston Redevelopment Authority and was also responsible for the city's public housing, affordable housing, neighborhood development and job training agencies. From 1990 to 1994, she was General Counsel for New York City's Economic Development Corporation. Lago earned a J.D. cum laude in 1982 from Harvard Law School, and a B.S. in physics from Cooper Union in 1977.
ProShares Launches Two New Exchange Traded Funds Based on the NASDAQ-100 Index
February 11, 2010--The NASDAQ Stock Market(R)
(Nasdaq:NDAQ) began trading today two new exchange-traded funds (ETFs)
designed to provide leveraged and inverse exposure to the NASDAQ-100
Index(R) (Nasdaq:NDX). The ETFs are sponsored by ProFunds Group, the
world's largest manager of leveraged and inverse funds.*
ProShares UltraPro QQQ (Nasdaq:TQQQ) aims to provide investment results
that correspond to 300% of the daily performance of the NASDAQ-100
Index (before fees and expenses), while ProShares UltraPro Short QQQ
(Nasdaq:SQQQ) seeks to produce 300% of the inverse daily performance of
the NASDAQ-100 Index (before fees and expenses).
These funds seek a 300% or -300% return of their indices for a single
day before fees and expenses. Due to the compounding of daily returns,
returns over periods other than one day will likely differ in amount
and possibly direction from the target returns for the same period.
Investors should monitor their holdings consistent with their
strategies, as frequently as daily. The funds' prospectuses describing
correlation, leverage and other risks are available at
www.proshares.com.
Christian ETF Family Outperforms Due to Equal-Weight Approach
February 11, 2010--FaithShares Advisors is very proud to present the initial returns for its’ family of Christian Exchange Traded Funds. During the turbulent times since the launch in mid-December, the funds have outperformed the broad markets’ performance. “The funds’ performance is really not a surprise to us” said J. Garrett Stevens, the Chief Executive Officer of FaithShares Advisors, “We specifically designed the funds with an equal-weighting of the stocks in the portfolio in an effort to outperform the broad markets during most types of market cycles
Even though it is a very short period of time, these results begin to verify the hypothetical back-testing we did.” Each of the five FaithShares funds, the FaithShares Baptist Values Fund (FZB), the FaithShares Catholic Values Fund (FCV), the FaithShares Christian Values Fund (FOC), the FaithShares Lutheran Values Fund (FKL) and the FaithShares Methodist Values Fund (FMV) are re-balanced each June to have 100 large-cap equally weighted stocks in each portfolio.
While the equal weighting is the main source of excess return, so far it also appears that stock selection will play a significant role. When each of the funds’ performance is compared to that of the equally-weighted S&P 500 index, there is outperformance there as well. FaithShares believes that using the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) rankings from KLD Research and Analytics to select the companies in their indexes will have a significantly positive impact on the funds. “We think that using the KLD ESG ranking will allow us to have some of the best run, most ethically managed companies in the large cap universe in our portfolios,” says Tom Phillips, President of FaithShares. “We also believe this will keep us from having too many negative surprises out of management such as litigation related to unethical business practices or fines from federal regulators because of poor environmental standards for example.” Investors can purchase the funds through their investment advisor or discount broker..
ETF Assets Drop in January
February 11, 2010--Total assets in U.S. exchange-traded funds fell 5.8%, or $45 billion, in January from a month earlier, according to monthly data from State Street Corp.
That brought ETF assets in the U.S. down to $730 billion. In December, global ETF assets hit the coveted $1 trillion milestone. The drop in U.S. assets was mostly in line with the market’s disappointing performance in January, as the S&P 500 fell 3.6% and the MSCI EAFE Index lost 4.4%.
Assets in fixed-income ETFs, however, rose 3.2%, or $3.2 billion, last month, continuing the trend that began last year in the sector. Fixed income, most notably TIPS, or Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, and one- to three-year bonds, led the asset surge into ETFs last year, taking in more than $200 billion through the first 11 months of 2009.
US ETF Snapshot: January 2010 -State Street Global Advisors
February 10, 2010-As of January 31, 840 ETFs in the US—with assets totaling approximately $730BN—were managed by 31 ETF managers.
ETF industry assets fell $45.3BN for the month, or 5.8%.
The ETF industry saw assets fall by 5.8% to begin the new year. Fixed Income was the lone bright spot, with a $3.2BN increase in assets.
Asset Classes — Overall
The S&P 500® Index fell 3.6% in January and the MSCI EAFE® Index fell 4.4% for the month in USD terms. Both the Barclays Capital U.S. Treasury Index and the Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Index rose 1.6%. Gold fell to $1078.50 an ounce, a loss of 0.8% from last month’s close.
Nine of the 12 sectors fell in absolute terms. Fixed Income assets climbed $3.2BN, a gain of 3.2% for the month.
The Financial Stability Plan - One Year Later
Statement of Secretary Tim Geithner
February 10, 2010--“It was one year ago today that the Obama Administration outlined a Financial Stability Plan to address the four problems at the heart of the financial crisis: frozen credit markets, weakened bank capital, a backlog of troubled mortgage assets on bank balance sheets, and falling home prices. At the time, with America in a deep recession, it did not matter if you were a company large or small, a family trying to buy a house, a car or even to put your kids in college; loans were not available.
“A year later, the actions we took, alongside the Recovery Act, have worked to restore economic growth and financial stability. Access to credit is improving and the cost of borrowing for businesses, consumers, homeowners, and state and local governments have fallen sharply. In addition, we have achieved this progress at much lower cost than anticipated. By encouraging private capital solutions rather than relying on public funds, the expected cost of stabilizing the financial system has fallen by more than $400 billion. We expect it will fall even further. And if Congress joins the President in adopting a Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee, Americans will not have to pay one cent for TARP.
“These measures of the direct financial costs of the crisis do not capture the economic devastation caused by the crisis. The financial system is healing, but still damaged, and we have a lot of repair work still ahead.”
Van Eck files with the SEC
February 10, 2010--Van Eck has filed a post-effective amendment, registration statement with the SEC for
Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF
Market Vectors Coal ETF
Market Vectors Global Alternative Energy ETF
Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF
Market Vectors Nuclear Energy ETF
Market Vectors RVE Hard Assets Producers ETF
Market Vectors Solar Energy ETF
Market Vectors Steel ETF
Whitcomb Center for Research in Financial Services creates “The Clearinghouse Project” to offer guidance for exchanges, traders and regulators
February 10, 2010--With the structure of securities markets changing dramatically, Rutgers Business School’s Whitcomb Center for Research in Financial Services announced the formation of “The Clearinghouse Project” to offer guidance to markets and participants. Exchanges, traders and regulators will benefit from the rich research experience and critical analysis the Whitcomb Center has been providing since 1986.
“There is a great unmet need for university-based global market structure consulting,” said Daniel G. Weaver, PhD, Director of “The Clearinghouse Project” and Associate Professor, Finance and Economics at Rutgers Business School. “We offer exchanges, regulators, and participants the combined knowledge of four market structure experts with long histories of providing client services to market participants.”
The services offered by “The Clearinghouse Project” include:
• Compiling White Papers and/or executive summaries of literature relevant to a particular decision or trading rule (e.g., the impact of pre-trade transparency or securities taxes on market quality)
• Conducting surveys (e.g., polling participants on anticipated responses to changes in trading rules)
• Analyzing the ex-post impact of rule changes relative to a desired outcome (e.g., do changes in order display rules result in improved liquidity?)
• Compiling execution quality statistics to satisfy regulatory reporting requirements
The Whitcomb Center for Research in Financial Services at Rutgers Business School, named after market structure theory pioneer David Whitcomb, funds research, acquires up-to-date financial databases and underwrites faculty and doctoral student participation in prominent academic conferences.
Full details of “The Clearinghouse Project” can be found by visiting the Whitcomb Center home page at business.rutgers.edu/whitcomb.
US regional banks to step up lending
February 10, 2010--Some US regional banks, including commercial lending specialist Comerica, expect to increase loans to small-and medium-sized businesses later this year, sooner than analysts had expected.
Fears that banks will not make enough loans to keep the recovery going have led the Obama administration to unveil plans to spur lending to smaller businesses.
In recent conference calls with analysts, Comerica, which has operations in Texas, California and Michigan, and Tennessee-based First Horizon said they expected to increase commercial and industrial loans, a type of lending backed by inventory and cash flow as opposed to real estate. Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington Bancshares is also expected to increase certain types of loans beginning this year, according to Erik Oja, a Standard & Poor’s analyst.
