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The Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund to be Rebalanced
February 10. 2010--State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), the investment management business of State Street Corporation, today announced that effective February 12, 2010, The Financial Select Sector SPDR(R) Fund (ticker: XLF) will be rebalancing to reflect the addition of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/B) to its underlying index. Berkshire Hathaway will become a component security of the index for The Financial Select Sector SPDR(R) Fund on or about February 16, 2010. No changes are being made to the fund's investment objectives or ticker symbol.
To facilitate an orderly rebalancing for the Financial Select Sector SPDR(R) Fund, the list of securities applicable to all purchase and redemption orders placed on Friday, February 12, 2010 for The Financial Select Sector SPDR(R) Fund will be based on post-rebalance index holdings instead of index holdings as of the close of business on Thursday, February 11, 2010.
State Street Global Advisors is one of the largest ETF providers globally with assets under management for SPDR ETFs totaling more than $204 billion as of December 31, 2009.
Research Affiliates, LLC and Ryan ALM, Inc. Partner to Launch Fundamental Index®- based US Corporate Bond Indexes
New Indexes Extend Fundamental Index® Methodology into Fixed Income
February 10, 2010--Research Affiliates, LLC, and Ryan ALM, Inc., today announced the launch, effective January 1, 2010, of the RAFI US Corporate Bond Index Series for Investment Grade and High Yield. This series of investable, broad market indexes is the first to apply the Research Affiliates Fundamental Index® methodology for the creation and calculation of bond indexes.
"In seeking to test and extend the boundaries of the Fundamental Index methodology, we applied the approach to bonds looking at US Corporate Investment Grade and High Yield," said Research Affiliates founder Rob Arnott. "The results were compelling, further validating the methodology and offering investors a more efficient means of constructing a bond index or portfolio with superior risk/reward characteristics."
The Fundamental Index methodology has received numerous awards for innovation and index provider of the year. Currently there are more than 100 equity indexes available through the FTSE RAFI Index Series and more than 200 investment products and separate mandates currently being managed to the methodologies by investors, managers and fund sponsors globally.
In calculating the RAFI® US Corporate Bond Index Series, Research Affiliates provides its Fundamental Index methodology for the creation of an index using fundamental measures of company size. Ryan ALM Index Division applies the methodology to construct and calculate the indexes.
The RAFI US Corporate Bond Indexes start with a universe of 5,000 issues that are then given fundamental weights. Ryan ALM then selects issues that qualify under the index rules, shown below in Tables 1 and 2. A most unique feature of the index rules is the creation of three maturity cells (1–5 years, 5–10 years, and 10+ years) whereby each index only selects the single bond with the highest amount outstanding per issuer per maturity cell. For example, the 1–30+ year index series would have three maturity cells allowing for three issues of the same issuer if they qualify under the index rules. This ensures the greatest liquidity for each index such that investors can actually buy and duplicate the index portfolios, while maintaining exposure to the underlying duration and credit characteristics. Each index has been back-tested to December 31, 1999, and has demonstrated consistent performance versus comparable traditional bond indexes.
EGA Emerging Global Shares files with the SEC
February 9, 2010--EGA Emerging Global Shares has filed a prospectus with the SEC for
Emerging Global Shares Dow Jones Emerging Markets Consumer Titans Index Fund.
view filing
Active ETFs will be run by former mutual fund managers
February 9, 2010--AlphaPro Management Inc., the smallest family of exchange-traded funds in Canada, is bringing a new dimension to ETF investing by offering fully actively managed funds that won't be tied to any specific stock indexes or quantitative screening methods.
Tomorrow will mark the debut of three new active ETFs, two of which will be in the hands of portfolio managers who rose to prominence with major mutual fund companies in the 1990s. This will help AlphaPro drive home its point that active ETFs can employ the same types of disciplines as actively managed fund.
One of the newly hired managers is former Trimark Investment Management Inc. manager Vito Maida, the epitome of an absolute-value investor who refuses to hold anything that falls short of meeting his fundamental criteria. He is the sub-advisor for Horizons AlphaPro North American Value ETF. The fund's objective is long-term capital appreciation and income through investing primarily in U.S. equities.
Horizons AlphaPro S&P/TSX 60 130/30(TM) ETF Launched - The First of its Kind in Canada
February 9, 2010--AlphaPro Management Inc. ("AlphaPro") is pleased to announce the launch of the Horizons AlphaPro S&P/TSX 60 130/30(TM) ETF (the "ETF") which begins trading today on the TSX under the symbol HAH
The ETF seeks investment results, before fees, expenses, distributions, brokerage commissions and other transaction costs, that endeavour to correspond to the performance of the S&P/TSX 60 130/30 Strategy Index(TM), a new index developed by S&P Indices. The S&P/TSX 60 130/30 Strategy Index(TM) is designed to measure the performance of an investment strategy that establishes over- and under-weight positions relative to the S&P/TSX 60(TM) Index, its parent index, by applying an analytical qualitative and quantitative ranking and weighting process. Using this process, on each quarterly rebalancing day, the S&P/TSX 60 130/30 Strategy Index(TM) will: (a) include a core 100% long position in the S&P/TSX 60(TM) Index; (b) identify 10 equity issuers in the S&P/TSX 60(TM) Index and overweight each of these issuers by 3 percentage points; and (c) identify 10 equity issuers in the S&P/TSX 60(TM) Index and underweight each of these issuers by 3 percentage points.
"We are pleased to make S&P Indices' innovative and strategic approach to indexing available to investors," said Ken McCord, President of AlphaPro. "This is the first long/short S&P(R) managed index ETF offered in Canada and represents the latest evolution from Horizons AlphaPro."
"The S&P/TSX 60 130/30 Strategy Index, the first of its type in Canada, extends S&P Indices' global family of 130/30 indices to the Canadian large cap universe," says Srikant Dash, Head of Research and Design at S&P Indices. "Horizons AlphaPro was a natural fit to provide an investable product based upon this Index, given their organization's vast expertise in ETF development for the Canadian marketplace."
China Reveals That It's A Major Investor In US Oil Trust, SPDR Gold ETF
February 9, 2010--It's well known that China has been making huge strategic purchases of commodities in order to support its rapidly growing economy over the coming years.
What's also interesting is that the country is placing financial bets on these commodities as well.
The nation's big sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corp, has revealed that it's the No. #4 investor in the US Oil Fund ETF (USO), as well as a major investor in the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), both of which are the pre-eminent market traded vehicles for their respective commodities.
NASDAQ OMX Hosts IPO Boot Camp Seminar
February 9, 2010--The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.
(Nasdaq:NDAQ) today hosted its IPO Boot Camp, the third in a series for
executives seeking a public listing. The event, held at NASDAQ
MarketSite in Times Square and attended by over 50 companies from a
variety of industry sectors, provided best practices information on
accessing the capital markets.
A series of panels discussed the widening of the IPO window in 2010,
IPO valuation and banker selection, how-to's for attracting and
retaining a winning board, regulation, and lessons learned from recent
IPOs.
Guest speakers included Craig Clay, Executive Vice President Americas Global Capital Markets, RR Donnelley; Victor H. Boyajian, Global Chair, Sonnenschein Venture Technology Group; R. Gregg Nabhan, Vice Chairman, Equity Capital Markets, Bank of America Merrill Lynch; Karin McKinnell, Vice President, NASDAQ OMX; Murray Huneke, Co-Head of Investment Banking, Piper Jaffray; Don Duffy, President, ICR; and Michael I. Otner, General Counsel, Medidata Solutions, Inc.
"It is a sign of a healthier IPO market that we saw so much interest in our 'boot camp' today, and we are seeing a good pipeline of IPO applications from viable companies in the healthcare, technology, social media and education sectors," said Bob McCooey, Senior Vice President of New Listings and Capital Markets at The NASDAQ OMX Group. "2010 is shaping up to be a better year than 2009, and we will benefit from a stronger first half -- in 2009, we didn't see any real momentum until April. While we are in what is being called a 'jobless recovery', we expect to see more VC-backed and PE-backed IPOs which will result in job generation."
In 2009, NASDAQ had 33 IPOs and it currently has approximately 100 IPO applications in the pipeline.
Sponsors of the IPO Boot Camp were American Stock Transfer & Trust Company, Sonnenschein Venture Technology, RR Donnelley, Deloitte, and Aon. ICR and NASDAQ OMX are holding a similar event for Chinese companies in Beijing next month.
NASDAQ OMX offers guidance and exclusive, innovative Corporate
Solutions for its applicants and NASDAQ-listed companies. For more
information, please visit http://www.nasdaq.net.
BNY Mellon - 2009 The Depositary Receipts Market Yearbook
February 8, 2010--The Depositary Receipts Market Yearbook: A comprehensive view of 2009's developments in this increasingly important sector of international equity capital markets.
Highlights include:
Overall DR performance, as tracked by the BNY Mellon ADR IndexSM, finished 2009 36% higher.
2009 saw record trading volume of 135 billion DRs, a 2% increase from last year.
In 2009, 287 new sponsored and unsponsored DR programs were established for companies from 35 countries providing retail and institutional investors with new equity opportunities.
DR issuers from 15 countries completed 63 initial public offerings and follow-on offerings, raising $32 billion, a 122% increase from 2008's $14.4 billion.
DR issuers from emerging markets continued to dominate many DR market metrics, accounting for 69% of DR capital raisings, 55% of DR trading value, 55% of DR trading volume, and 52% of new sponsored DR programs.
ELX Futures Reports Record Total Volume Trading Day
February 8, 2010 – ELX Futures, L.P. (ELX Futures) announced today that it had set a record total volume trading day for its combined five U.S. Treasury futures products. ELX Futures traded 90,986 contracts, surpassing its previous record volume trading day on October 30th, 2009 with 76,462 contracts traded.
Neal Wolkoff, Chief Executive Officer of ELX Futures, said, “We are pleased to report a record trading volume day today in our Treasury products. This is a remarkable accomplishment and shows the great strides that we have made since our launch. We expect to continue to build on our volume figures to achieve new records in the months ahead.”
Pax World foles with the SEC
February 8, 2010--Pax World has filed an amended application for exemptive relief with the SEC.
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Filing reveals Chinese wealth fund's exposure
February 8, 2010--China Investment Corporation, the Chinese sovereign wealth fund, is using exchange-traded funds to take positions on sectors ranging from healthcare to gold, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The filing showed that CIC’s largest US stock market investments were in miner Teck Resources, investment bank Morgan Stanley, asset manager BlackRock and Visa, the credit card company.
About a quarter of its US portfolio was in exchange-traded funds, many of them provided by BlackRock’s iShares division. Investors ranging from hedge funds to retail customers have turned to ETFs, as they are known, because they are a low-cost and flexible way to take positions on sectors or entire markets.
