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iShares files with the SEC
January 22, 2010--iShares has filed a prospectus for
iShares MSCI Poland Investable Market Index Fund
view filing
iShares files with the SEC
January 22, 2010-iShares has filed a prospectus with the SEC for
Shares MSCI New Zealand Investable Market Index Fund
view filing
iShares files a prospectus with SEC
January 22, 2010--iShares has filed a prospectus with the SEC for
iShares MSCI Indonesia Investable Market Index Fund
view filing
iShares files with the SEC
January 22, 2010--iShares has filed a prospectus for
iShares MSCI China Small Cap Index Fund
view filing
Russel files with the SEC
January 22, 2010--Russel has files an amended application for exemptive relief from the SEC.
view filing
PowerShares files with the SEC
January 22, 2010--Powershares has filed a registration statement with the SEC for
PowerShares CEF Income Composite Portfolio
NYSE Ticker: PCEF
view filing
Successful first trading week for ETF Securities Platinum and Palladium exchange-traded funds (ETFs). High exchange volumes and asset inflows.
- ETFS Physical Platinum Shares (Ticker: PPLT)
- ETFS Physical Palladium Shares (Ticker: PALL)
First Trading Week Highlights for PPLT and PALL:
Assets under Management: Total assets for PPLT and PALL now exceed $350M with total assets across all four physically-backed products now at $850M as of January 15, 2010.
First Week Net New Assets: PPLT and PALL collectively garnered over $350M in the first trading session across multiple market participants.
Trading Volumes: PPLT traded a daily average of over 300k shares and PALL traded over 450k shares.
ETFS Platinum Trust (PPLT) and ETFS Palladium Trust (PALL)
The objective of the ETFS Platinum Trust’s (PPLT) shares reflect the performance of the price of Platinum, less the Trust’s expenses. The Trust is open ended and is designed for investors who want a cost-effective (1) and convenient (2) way to invest in Platinum as well as diversify their precious metal holdings. Both products have an expense ratio of 0.60% per annum. (3) The objective of the ETFS Palladium Trust’s (PALL) shares reflect the performance of the price of Palladium, less the Trust’s expenses. The Trust is open ended and is designed for investors who want a cost-effective (1) and convenient (2) way to invest in Palladium as well as diversify their precious metal holdings.
ETFS Platinum Trust (PPLT) and ETFS Palladium Trust (PALL) are both backed by Platinum and Palladium allocated bullion in plate and ingot form stored in secure vaults in London & Switzerland by the Custodian, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A, one of the world's leading Custodians for precious metals. All plate and ingot held by the trust conforms to the London Platinum and Palladium Market (LPPM)(4) “good delivery list”. The Shares represent an interest in physical platinum and palladium bullion owned by the Trust. The physical platinum and palladium allocated bullion of the Trust is subject to minimal counterparty or credit risks, which contrasts with other offerings that achieve bullion exposure through the use of derivatives.
ETF Securities now offers a full precious metal offering to US investors with a suite of four physically backed precious metal ETFs that include: Gold (SGOL), Silver (SIVR), Platinum (PPLT) and Palladium (PALL). All four ETFs have seen positive interest to date from investors looking to gain exposure to a broader set of physically backed precious metals or diversify existing gold and silver holdings from legacy products because of the use of secure vaults in Switzerland (SGOL), the transparent vault auditing process and lower management fees.
Commenting on the first week’s trading of the new physical ETFs on NYSE ARCA Fred Jheon, Head of Product and Business Development of ETFS Marketing LLC, said:
“The first week of trading in PPLT and PALL has been very strong and reflects healthy investor interest. Investors like the physical backed structure and uniqueness of these PGM products to the US market. This has also been ETF Securities most successful launch to date globally!”
iShares Announces Launch of Five iShares MSCI International Sector Funds
Funds to Help Enhance Investor Access to Sector Exposure Within Specific Regions
January 22, 2010-- iShares, a global leader in Exchange Traded Funds, announced that the iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Financials Sector Index Fund (AXFN), the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Financials Sector Index Fund (EMFN), the iShares MSCI Europe Financials Sector Index Fund (EUFN), the iShares MSCI Far East Financials Sector Index Fund (FEFN) and the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Materials Sector Index Fund (EMMT), will begin trading on NASDAQ today.
The funds seek to provide more modularity and focus in expressing regional differences in sector performance
With the addition of these iShares MSCI International Sector Funds, individuals, financial professionals and institutions will now have access to one of the most comprehensive sector offerings, including U.S. sector/subsector, global sector, and now international sector ETFs," said Michael Latham, co-CEO of iShares at BlackRock. "We are excited to expand our international financial and materials sector fund offerings as it is an underserved segment of the market and one that continues to draw strong investor demand."
The use of MSCI indices provides useful building blocks within a larger MSCI-based international product set.
-- iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Financials Sector Index Fund expands the iShares sector offering, providing exposure to the financials sector of developed and emerging markets countries, excluding the United States. The Fund offers the only GICs-based financial sector classification that also includes emerging markets exposure. The top five country exposure of the index is UK 13%, Australia 10%, Canada 10%, Japan 9% and Spain 6%(1).
The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Financials Sector Index Fund expands the iShares sector offering, providing exposure to the financials sector of emerging market countries. The financials sector includes banks, diversified financial companies, insurance companies and real estate companies. The top five country exposure of the index is comprised of China 28%, Brazil 14%, South Korea 10%, India 8% and Taiwan 8%(1).
iShares MSCI Europe Financials Sector Index Fund expands the iShares sector offering by providing exposure to the financials sector of developed market countries in Europe. The iShares sector offering is now more than 40 domestic, global and international sector/subsector ETFs. The top five country exposure of the index is UK 29%, Spain 13%, France 13%, Switzerland 12% and Germany 10%(1).
iShares MSCI Far East Financials Sector Index Fund expands the iShares sector offering, providing exposure to the financials sector of developed countries in the Far East region. The financials sector includes banks, diversified financial companies, insurance companies and real estate companies. The country breakdown of the index is Japan 63%, Hong Kong 26% and Singapore 12%(1).
-- iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Materials Sector Index Fund expands the iShares sector offering, providing exposure to the materials sector of emerging market countries. The materials sector includes chemical companies, construction materials companies, containers and packaging companies, metals and mining companies and paper and forest product companies. The top five country breakdown of the index is Brazil 30%, South Africa 13%, South Korea 12%, Taiwan 10% and China 7%(1).
(1)Source MSCI Inc., BlackRock as of 9/30/09.
Effects of Obama’s Proposal on Alternatives Industry Significant
Many banks are major backers of funds;
Banks also own important fund manager and fund of funds manager operations
January 21, 2010--President Obama’s statement calling for banks to be banned from “owning, investing in or sponsoring” private equity and hedge
funds could have a very significant impact on the alternatives industry.
Preqin has analyzed its industry-leading databases of investor information and fund manager data in order to reveal the
contribution that banks and investment banks make to the US private equity industry. It is important to note that any effects of this
proposal would also be felt further afield, with many US institutions also investing in European and Asian funds. It would also affect
the many European investors in funds managed by US banking institutions.
Within Private Equity:
• US banking institutions managing private equity funds and fund of funds have raised a total of 60 funds since 2006, with a
total value of over $80bn.
• US banking institutions currently have a total of 18 new private equity funds currently in marketing mode, seeking an aggregate $18bn.
• In total, banks have $50bn in private equity dry powder (i.e. capital available to them to spend on new investments).
• Although many banks have spun out their merchant banking operations in recent years, there remain some significant players in this market. The most prolific banks in this area include: Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup.
• Banks also play an important role as backers of private equity funds. They account for 5% of investors in the US by number, and represent around 9% of the capital invested in the asset class.
• In addition, there are 16 banks with fund of funds divisions currently managing private equity investments worth $94bn. Hundreds of limited partners in funds of funds managed by US banking institutions could also be affected by the proposal.
MF Global Realigns Equity Business
January 22, 2010--MF Global Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: MF), a leading intermediary offering customized solutions in global cash, derivatives and related markets, today announced the strategic realignment of its equity business in the United States. The realignment includes the expansion of the company’s U.S. equity derivatives, portfolio trading and electronic trading services (ETS) teams. MF Global also intends to sell its U.S. equity interdealer broker business.
The initiative is designed to leverage MF Global’s expertise in global equity and derivatives markets, as well as expand its institutional product offering.
“We continue to redefine our core institutional businesses to better serve our expanding global client base,” said Bernard W. Dan, chief executive officer, MF Global. “The strategic shift in our equity business better aligns with the company’s focus on high-growth, high-margin businesses. We are positioning the company to grow and scale our equity product offering by better aligning our people, products and services to meet the needs of our current clients and those we seek to attract.”
5 New iShares MSCI Sector Index Funds
January 21, 2010--Tomorrow, Friday January 22nd, five iShares MSCI Sector
> Index Funds are expected to list on NASDAQ
iShares MSCI Far East Financials Sector Index Fund
Ticker:FEFN
iShares MSCI Europe Financials Sector Index Fund
Ticker: EUFN
> iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Materials Sector Index Fund
Ticker: EMMT
> iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Financials Sector Index Fund
Ticker: EMFN
> iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Financials Sector Index Fund
Ticker: AXFN
U.S. Department of the Treasury Economic Statistics - Monthly Data Update
January 21, 2010--Monthly Data for U.S. Department of the Treasury. This information has recently been updated, and is now available.
view the Montlhly Data Update
Two ProShares Treasury ETFs List on NYSE Arca
January 21, 2010-- NYSE Euronext (NYX) announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, NYSE Arca, today began trading the ProShares Ultra 7-10 Year Treasury (Ticker: UST) and theProShares Ultra 20+ Year Treasury (Ticker: UBT). The ETFs are sponsored by ProShares.
ProShares Ultra 7-10 Year Treasury
The Fund seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses and interest income earned on cash and financial instruments, that correspond to twice (200%) the daily performance of the Barclays Capital 7-10 Year U.S. Treasury Bond Index (the “Index”). The Index includes all publicly issued, U.S. Treasury securities that have a remaining maturity of between 7 and 10 years, are non-convertible, are denominated in U.S. dollars, are rated (at least Baa3 by Moody’s Investors Service or BBB- by S&P), are fixed rate, and have more than $250 million par outstanding. The Index is weighted by the relative market value of all securities meeting the Index criteria. Excluded from the Index are certain special issues, such as flower bonds, targeted investor notes (TINs), U.S. Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPs), state and local government bonds (SLGs), and coupon issues that have been stripped from assets already included. The Index is published under the Bloomberg ticker symbol “LT09TRUU.”
ProShares Ultra 20+ Year Treasury
The Fund seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses and interest income earned on cash and financial instruments, that correspond to twice (200%) the daily performance of the Barclays Capital 20+ Year U.S. Treasury Bond Index (the “Index”). The Index includes all publicly issued, U.S. Treasury securities that have a remaining maturity greater than 20 years, are non-convertible, are denominated in U.S. dollars, are rated investment grade (at least Baa3 by Moody’s Investors Service or BBB- by S&P), are fixed rate, and have more than $250 million par outstanding. The Index is weighted by the relative market value of all securities meeting the Index criteria. Excluded from the Index are certain special issues, such as flower bonds, targeted investor notes (TINs), U.S. Treasury inflation protected securities (TIPs), state and local government series bonds (SLGs), and coupon issues that have been stripped from assets already included. The Index is published under the Bloomberg ticker symbol “LT11TRUU.”
These funds seek a 200% return, respectively, of their indices for a single day. 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.
War on banks unsettles hedge funds
January 21, 2010--JPMorgan may be forced to pull just under $1bn it has invested in funds run by its flagship hedge fund, the $21bn Highbridge Capital, if new proposals from the US government to regulate banks’ use of proprietary capital go through.
JPMorgan took a majority stake in Highbridge in 2007 and full ownership in 2009, but was also one of the single largest investors in the firm’s underlying funds last year.
The bank invested $225m in Highbridge in the first quarter of 2009, reversing a damaging slew of redemptions from other clients that had hit the fund and many of its peers after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.
Obama to set limits on bank trading
January 21, 2010--President Barack Obama is set to toughen his approach to Wall Street regulation on Thursday, announcing limits on the size of proprietary trading operations in the second broadside against banks this month.
Mr Obama will make his remarks after a meeting with Paul Volcker, the White House adviser and former Federal Reserve chairman, whose more far-reaching vision of curbing banks’ riskier activities has been sidelined until now in favour of reforms drafted in the Treasury.
