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ETFS platinum/palladium funds closer to US listing
December 24, 2009--The first platinum and palladium exchange-traded funds proposed for the United States have cleared one major hurdle with U.S. market regulators bringing the products a step closer to final approval.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved a proposed rule change on Tuesday to list and trade shares of the Platinum and Palladium Trusts proposed by London-based ETF Securities, the SEC's website said on Thursday.
Analysts anticipated a rush of investment dollars into platinum and palladium if the SEC gives its final nod. Prices of the precious metals, used mostly for making the catalytic converters that reduce exhaust emissions in vehicles, rallied on the news.
Platinum futures jumped 3 percent and palladium rose 8 percent in New York. The spot price of platinum hit a one-week high above $1,466, while palladium surged to three-week peaks at $381 per ounce.
Goldman Sachs files with the SEC
December 24, 2009--Goldman Sachs has filed with the SEC for exemptive relief.
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ETF Securities not raising fees on Swiss gold and silver ETFs
December 23, 2009--ETF Securities USA says the expense ratios for ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares and ETFS Physical Silver Shares will remain unchanged following recent client and press inquiries.
Total assets under management for ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares and the ETFS Physical Silver Shares now exceed USD540m as of 8 December 2009.
The speculation follows the recent news that Powershares DB are raising the expense ratios on PowerShares DB Gold Fund and PowerShares DB Silver Fund will go from 0.50 per cent to 0.75 per cent.
MacroShares Major Metro Housing reaches an early termination trigger
December 21, 2009--Today MacroShares Housing Depositor announced the termination of the
MacroShares Major Metro Housing Up
Trust (UMM) and MacroShares Major
Metro Housing Down Trust (DMM) due to assets on deposit being less than $50 Million. Their respective registration statements provide for a termination when “the amount of cash and treasuries on deposit in the Up Trust and/or Down Trust is less than fifty (50) million dollars per trust on any business day and we elect, in our discretion, to terminate the paired trusts.”
UMM and DMM will continue to trade on NYSE Arca until the closing of the last day of trading, which will be December 28, 2009. On January 6, 2010, a final distribution payment will be made to the UMM and DMM shareholders of record as of December 31st based on the
underlying value of the Up and Down MacroShares Trusts. The underlying value of the trusts will be determined based on the November 24, 2009 release of the Reference Value of the S&P/Case-Shiller Composite-10 Home Price Index.
MacroShares Housing Depositor, estimates that early termination expenses for UMM and DMM in connection with the early termination of the MacroShares Major Metro Housing Trusts, will range from $0.85 to $0.90 per share, based on 430,000 shares of each Trust currently outstanding. These early termination expenses, along with regular ongoing daily expenses shall be accrued ratably, commencing December 22ndh, through December 28th, the last day on which shares of each Trust will trade.
Notice to Investors in Certain ProShares ETF Funds of Filing Deadlines and Submission of Investor Reply Briefs by Gilman and Pastor LLP -- SCO, DIG, SMN
December 23, 2009--Gilman and Pastor LLP is investigating claims on behalf of all persons who purchased or otherwise acquired shares in the ProShares UltraShort DJ AIG Crude Oil (NYSE:SCO); Ultra Oil & Gas (NYSE:DIG); and UltraShort Basic Materials (NYSE:SMN).
The ProShares Funds are exchange-traded funds ("ETF") offered by ProShares Trust ("ProShares") and Plaintiffs and class members were damaged pursuant or traceable to ProShares' false and misleading Registration Statement, Prospectuses, and Statements of Additional Information (collectively, the "Registration Statement"). The Plaintiffs seek a Class and Subclasses for the ProShares Fund purchased by the Plaintiffs. The Class is seeking recovery for investors under Sections 11 and 15 of the Securities Act of 1933 (the "Securities Act").
iShares files with the SEC
December 23, 2009-iShares has filed a post-effective amedment and registration statement with the SEC.
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John Hancock files with the SEC
December 23, 2009-John Hancock has filed an application for exemptive relief from the SEC for actively managed ETFs.
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ELX Futures To Launch New Ultra Long-Term U.S Treasury Bond Futures Contract In January - New Ultra Long-Term Bond Futures Contract To Begin Trading January 11, 2010
December 23, 2009--ELX Futures, L.P. (ELX Futures), a new fully electronic futures exchange, announced today that it will launch its new Ultra Long-Term U.S. Treasury Bond Futures contract on Monday, January 11, 2010. The new Ultra Long-Term bond contract will join ELX’s suite of U.S Treasury futures products already trading, including the 2, 5 and 10 Year Notes and the 30 Year Bond.
Neal Wolkoff, Chief Executive Officer of ELX Futures, said, “We are pleased to launch our fifth new U.S. Treasury product to compliment our current suite of futures contracts. ELX Futures will continue to add and grow its product offerings and provide new opportunities for our market participants to take advantage of our fully electronic marketplace and competitive fee structure.”
ELX Futures will initially list three contract months of the Ultra Long-Term Bond on a quarterly cycle and the associated calendar spreads, beginning with the March, 2010 contract. The current fee schedule and trading hours for the existing ELX U.S. Treasury Futures contracts will apply.
Wisdom Tree files with the SEC
December 23, 2009--Wisdom Tree files for exemptive relief with the SEC.
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TREASURY RECEIVES $45 BILLION IN REPAYMENTS FROM WELLS FARGO AND CITIGROUP
TARP Repayments Now Total $164 Billion
December 23, 2009-- Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury received repayments on its Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) investments in Wells Fargo and Citigroup in the sum of $45 billion, bringing the total amount of repaid TARP funds to $164 billion.
Wells Fargo repaid $25 billion under the Capital Purchase Program (CPP) and Citigroup repaid $20 billion under the Targeted Investment Program (TIP), both of which will wind down at the end of this year. Treasury now estimates that total bank repayments should exceed $175 billion by the end of 2010, cutting total taxpayer exposure to the banks by three-quarters.
In addition, effective today, Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Citigroup terminated the agreement under which the U.S. government agreed to share losses on a pool of originally $300 billion of Citigroup assets. This arrangement was entered into in January of this year under Treasury’s Asset Guarantee Program (AGP) and was originally expected to last for 10 years. The U.S. government parties did not pay any losses under the agreement and will keep $5.2 billion of $7 billion in trust preferred securities as well as warrants for common shares that were issued by Citigroup as consideration for such guarantee. With this termination, the AGP is being terminated at a profit to the taxpayer.
Treasury currently estimates that TARP programs aimed at stabilizing the banking system will earn a profit thanks to dividends, interest, early repayments, and the sale of warrants. Total bank investments of $245 billion in FY2009 that were initially projected to cost $76 billion are now projected to bring a profit. Taxpayers have already received over $16 billion in profits from all TARP programs and that profit could be considerably higher as Treasury sells additional warrants in the weeks ahead.
PowerShares files with the SEC
December 23, 2009-PowerShares files a prospectus with the SEC for
PowerShares India Portfolio-Ticker: PIN
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Van Eck files with the SEC
December 23, 2009--Van Eck has filed a prospectus with the SEC for the
Latin America Small-Cap ETF- (Ticker symbol: LATM)
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Standard & Poor's Announces Changes In The S&P/TSX Canadian Indices
December 23, 2009--Standard & Poor's Canadian Index Operations announces the following index changes:
The unitholders of Harvest Energy Trust (TSX:HTE.UN) have accepted the $CDN10.00 cash per unit offer from the Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC).
Harvest will be removed from the S&P/TSX Composite and Capped Composite, the S&P/TSX SmallCap and Completion, the S&P/TSX Income Trust and Capped Energy Trust and the S&P/TSX Capped Energy indices effective after the close of Tuesday, December 29, 2009.
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.
DB Index Research -- Weekly ETF Reports -- US
December 22, 2009--Highlights
ETF Liquidity Trends
ETF Volume
US ETF turnover declined by 4.6% to US$55bn in the previous week. Turnover in the S&P 500 SPDR ("Spider") was US$17.3bn. The iShares Russell 2000 had turnover of US$3.6bn followed by PowerShares QQQ Nasdaq 100 with turnover of US$3.5bn.
There were four new ETFs launched in the last week. FaithShares Advisors launched two new theme ETFs followed by Global X which launched one new emerging country ETF. State Street GA launched one new corporate ETF. All the listings were on NYSE Arca.
In the previous week, average daily turnover in the Large Cap, US Sector, Leveraged and Global Regional products was US$22.4bn (-4.0%), US$9.0bn (-2.3%), US$6.8bn (-10.8%) and US$4.6bn (-4.4%) respectively.
Among the Emerging country ETFs, iShares MSCI Brazil ETF turnover was US$1,239m followed by iShares FTSE/Xinhua China ETF with turnover of US$822m. In non-US developed market flows, iShares MSCI Japan had turnover of US$358m. In non-domestic regional flows, emerging market turnover was US$3.4bn and developed markets regional flows EAFE had turnover of US$1.0bn.
Assets under Management (AUM)
Total assets under management for equity based ETFs rose by 1.3% in the previous week, AUM were US$597.6bn. See page 8 for largest changes in fund shares .
To request a copy of the report
SEC Proposes Rule Amendments to Facilitate Access to Capital Markets
December 22, 2009--The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it has proposed amendments to Rule 163 under the Securities Act to further facilitate the ability of certain large companies to communicate with broader groups of potential investors and gauge the level of interest in the market for their securities offerings.
The proposed amendments would apply to companies that are "well-known seasoned issuers" (WKSIs) and would allow them to authorize an underwriter or dealer to communicate with potential investors on their behalf about potential securities offerings prior to filing registration statements for such offerings. Under the current Rule 163, only WKSIs are permitted to communicate directly with potential investors before filing a registration statement.
A WKSI is an issuer that is current and timely in its Exchange Act reports for at least one year and has either $700 million of publicly-held shares or has issued $1 billion of non-convertible securities, other than common equity, in registered offerings for cash in the preceding three years.
As proposed, an underwriter or dealer could act as an agent or representative of a WKSI if the following conditions are satisfied:
The underwriter or dealer receives written authorization from the WKSI to act as its agent or representative before making any communication on its behalf. The WKSI authorizes or approves any written or oral communication before it is made by an authorized underwriter or dealer.
Any authorized underwriter or dealer that has made any authorized communication on behalf of the issuer in reliance on Rule 163 is identified in any prospectus contained in the registration statement that is filed for the offering to which the communication relates. All other current requirements of Rule 163 would continue to apply, including that all communications made by or on behalf of the WKSI in reliance on the rule would be subject to Regulation FD (Fair Disclosure).
Public comments on the rule amendments proposed today must be received by the Commission within 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.
SEC Proposed Amendments to Rule 163
