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Citadel and CME scrap platform plan
September 18, 2009-The CME Group, the world’s biggest futures exchange, and Citadel, the hedge fund, yesterday abandoned efforts to establish a trading platform for the $27,000bn over-the-counter credit derivatives market.
The move came after a year-long effort by the groups, which conceded yesterday that they could not attract any interest from the Wall Street banks that were the main dealers in the contracts. The move is an embarrassing setback for two of the US’s most powerful financial institutions, which touted their solution as a transparent and efficient alternative to the structural risks in the market for agreements such as credit default swaps.
BATS Global Markets To Launch Second Us Equities Exchange - Anticipates Go-Live In Early 2010 Pending Regulatory Approval
September 17, 2009--BATS Global Markets, an innovative global financial markets technology company, today announced plans to launch a second US equities exchange in early 2010.
The owner and operator of BATS Exchange, the third-largest US equities exchange, is preparing to formally file an application for the second US equities exchange with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the coming weeks.
BATS’ second exchange, called BYX, will utilize the same proven world-class technology, location and connectivity as the existing exchange. Pricing for BYX will be announced at a later date.
“We are pleased to announce plans for a second US equities exchange. BYX will allow us even greater flexibility in pricing and innovation that will result in more choices for the industry,” said Joe Ratterman, CEO of BATS Exchange and BATS Global Markets.
“Since our first trade in 2006 BATS has been a market leader with great technology and aggressive pricing. The launch of BYX is the logical next step in our efforts to make markets better through the creation of innovative trading tools and services that meet the needs of all market participants,” he said.
In less than four years, BATS Exchange has captured 10% matched market share in U.S. equities while, overseas, BATS Europe, a pan-European multilateral trading facility, is trading nearly 8% of the FTSE 100 and 4% of the CAC 40 only 10 months after launch.
The company also recently announced plans to open a US options exchange in 2010. BATS Options remains on target to go live in the first quarter.
CME Group Announces Volume Record For Natural Gas Futures
September 17, 2009-CME Group, the world's largest and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced a daily volume record for natural gas futures traded on the CME Globex(R) electronic trading platform and the New York trading floor on September 15. These contracts are listed with and subject to the rules and regulations of NYMEX.
Natural gas futures reached 404,450 contracts, surpassing the 403,106 contracts traded on July 24, 2008.
"We know our customers have multiple venues in which they can manage their risk in the domestic natural gas markets," said Joe Raia, CME Group managing director of energy and metals products and services. "Our customers continue to rely on the liquidity, price transparency, and the stability that our central party clearing facility brings to the markets. With the majority of our Henry Hub benchmark natural gas futures volume now transacted electronically, our customers know that they are executing on the most technologically-proven platform available in the marketplace, and they have the flexibility of executing their natural gas trades off-exchange and clearing them via CME ClearPort(R)."
For more information please visit www.cmegroup.com.
SEC Proposes Flash Order Ban
September 17, 2009--The Securities and Exchange Commission today unanimously proposed a rule amendment that would prohibit the practice of flashing marketable orders.
A flash order enables a person who has not publicly displayed a quote to see orders less than a second before the public is given an opportunity to trade with those orders.
Additional Materials
Submit comments on this proposal
Proposed Rule Release No. 34-60684
Investors who have access only to information displayed as public quotes may be harmed if market participants are able to flash orders and avoid the need to make the order publicly available.
"Flash orders may create a two-tiered market by allowing only selected participants to access information about the best available prices for listed securities," said SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro. "These flash orders provide a momentary head-start in the trading arena that can produce inequities in the markets and create disincentives to display quotes."
Currently, flash orders are permitted as result of an exception to Rule 602 of Regulation NMS that exempts these orders from requirements that apply generally to other orders. The Commission is concerned that the Rule 602 exception may no longer be necessary or appropriate in today's highly automated trading environment.
The Commission today voted unanimously to propose the elimination of the flash order exception from Rule 602. If adopted, the proposed amendment would effectively prohibit all markets - including equity exchanges, options exchanges, and alternative trading systems - from displaying marketable flash orders.
In its proposal, the Commission is seeking public comment and data on a broad range of issues relating to flash orders, including the costs and benefits associated with the proposal. It also seeks comment on whether the use of flash orders in the options markets should be evaluated differently than their use in the equity markets.
* * *
Public comments on today's proposal must be received by the Commission within 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register.
The full text of the proposed rule amendment will be posted to the SEC Web site as soon as possible.
SEC Votes on Measures to Further Strengthen Oversight of Credit Rating Agencies
September 17, 2009--The Securities and Exchange Commission today voted unanimously to take several rulemaking actions to bolster oversight of credit ratings agencies by enhancing disclosure and improving the quality of credit ratings.
Credit rating agencies are organizations that rate the creditworthiness of a company or a financial product, such as a debt security or money market instrument. In particular, the Commission voted to adopt or propose measures intended to improve the quality of credit ratings by requiring greater disclosure, fostering competition, helping to address conflicts of interest, shedding light on rating shopping, and promoting accountability.
"These proposals are needed because investors often consider ratings when evaluating whether to purchase or sell a particular security," said SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro. "That reliance did not serve them well over the last several years, and it is incumbent upon us to do all that we can to improve the reliability and integrity of the ratings process and give investors the appropriate context for evaluating whether ratings deserve their trust."
In 2006, Congress passed the Credit Rating Agency Reform Act that provided the SEC with authority to impose registration, recordkeeping, and reporting rules on credit rating agencies registered as Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (NRSRO). Currently, 10 credit rating agencies are registered with the Commission as NRSROs.
Among the Commission's actions today to create a stronger, more robust regulatory framework for credit rating agencies:
- Adopted rules to provide greater information concerning ratings histories - and to enable competing credit rating agencies to offer unsolicited ratings for structured finance products, by granting them access to the necessary underlying data for structured products.
- Proposed amendments that would seek to strengthen compliance programs through requiring annual compliance reports and enhance disclosure of potential sources of revenue-related conflicts.
- Adopted amendments to the Commission's rules and forms to remove certain references to credit ratings by nationally recognized statistical rating organizations.
- Reopened the public comment period to allow further comment on Commission proposals to eliminate references to NRSRO credit ratings from certain other rules and forms.
- Proposed new rules that would require disclosure of information including what a credit rating covers and any material limitations on the scope of the rating and whether any "preliminary ratings" were obtained from other rating agencies - in other words, whether there was "ratings shopping."
- Voted to seek public comment on whether to amend Commission rules to subject NRSROs to liability when a rating is used in connection with a registered offering by eliminating a current provision that exempts NRSROs from being treated as experts when their ratings are used that way.
State Street Global Advisors Launches Preferred Stock ETF
September 17, 2009--SSgA announced that the SPDR® Wells Fargo®
Preferred Stock ETF (Symbol: PSK) began trading on the NYSE Arca on September
17, 2009.
Its annual expense ratio is 0.45 percent.
The SPDR Wells Fargo Preferred Stock ETF seeks to track the performance of the
Wells Fargo® Hybrid and Preferred Securities Aggregate Index. The index includes
non-convertible preferred securities listed on the NYSE or NYSE Arca that have a
par amount of $25; are rated investment grade by Moody's Investors Service, Inc.
or Standard & Poor's Ratings Services; and have a minimum monthly trading volume
during each of the last six months of at least 250,000 trading units. As of July
31, 2009, the index provides exposure to more than 160 securities.
Preferred stock is an asset class that shares some similarities with both common stock and bonds. Preferred stock represents partial ownership in a company, however, shareholders usually do not have voting rights, and similar to bonds, the primary source of return is usually generated by a fixed payment - a dividend that must be paid out before dividends to common stockholders.
"The SPDR Wells Fargo Preferred Stock ETF provides financial advisors and investors with improved access to the benefits of this unique asset class, which include high yields and a low correlation to both bonds and common stock," said Anthony Rochte, senior managing director at State Street Global Advisors. "Developed in response to investor demand, the SPDR Wells Fargo Preferred Stock ETF is based on an index that offers a level of diversification that is unmatched by other benchmarks in this asset class."
State Street Global Advisors is one of the largest ETF providers in the United
States and globally. U.S. assets under management for SPDR ETFs totaled more
than $160 billion as of August 31, 2009.
DB Index Research -- Weekly ETF Reports - US
September 16, 2009--Highlights
ETF Volume
US ETF turnover declined by 3.6% to US$55.6bn in the previous week. Turnover in the S&P 500 SPDR ("Spider") was US$18.7bn. The PowerShares QQQ Nasdaq 100 had turnover of US$4.0bn followed by the Direxionshares Financial Bull 3X Shares with turnover of US$2.5bn.
There were two new ETFs launched in the previous week. ETF Securities launched one new commodity based ETF. PIMCO launched one new fixed income ETF. Both ETFs are listed on NYSE Arca.
In the previous week, average daily turnover in the Large Cap, US Sector, Leveraged and Short products was US$24.3bn (-3.1%), US$7.9bn (-3.3%), US$8.3bn (-5.8%), and US$3.8bn (-5.7%) respectively.
Among the Emerging country ETFs, iShares FTSE/Xinhua China ETF turnover was US$928m followed by the iShares MSCI Brazil ETF with turnover of US$825m. In non-US developed market flows, iShares MSCI Japan had turnover of US$231m. In non-domestic regional flows, emerging market turnover was US$2.5bn 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 3.9% in the previous week, AUM were US$537.2bn.
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Lists Dent Tactical ETF on NYSE Arca
September 16, 2009--NYSE Euronext announced that its
wholly-owned subsidiary, NYSE Arca, today began trading the
AdvisorShares Dent Tactical ETF (Ticker: DENT). The ETF is sponsored by
AdvisorShares.
The Fund is an actively managed “fund of funds,” which means that it
seeks to achieve its investment objective – long term growth of capital
– by investing primarily in other ETFs and shares of certain
exchange-traded products, including but not limited to, exchange-traded
notes, exchange-traded currency trusts and exchange-traded commodities
pools. The Fund does not seek to replicate the performance of a
specified index. H.S. Dent Investment Management, LLC (the
“Sub-Advisor”) seeks to achieve the Fund’s investment objective by
identifying, through proprietary economic and demographic analysis, the
overall trend of the U.S. and global economies, and then implementing
investment strategies in asset classes (such as, but not limited to,
foreign and domestic equities or fixed income securities) that the
Sub-Advisor believes will benefit from these trends. Please refer to
the Fund’s prospectus available at www.AdvisorShares.com.
ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (SGOL) breaks $70m assets under management
• ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (SGOL) trading volumes show robust
positive momentum exceeding management expectations during first week of trading.
• Strong inflows validate investor appetite for physically-backed gold stored
in Switzerland.
• ETF Securities combined assets in SIVR and SGOL are now over $180.5m
September 16, 2009 – ETF Securities USA LLC (ETFS) announced today that the
assets under management of the ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (SGOL) now exceeds
$70m as of September 16, 2009 after experiencing high trading volumes since launch. Total
assets under management in SGOL and ETFS Physical Silver (SIVR) now stand at $180.5m
as at September 16, 2009.
ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (SGOL) began trading on the NYSE ARCA on September
9th, 2009 and we believe the inflows and trading volumes seen since inception indicate an
increasingly bullish sentiment by investors towards Gold.
The objective of the newly listed shares is to reflect the performance of the price of Gold bullion, less the Trust’s operating expenses. The Trust is open ended and is designed for investors who want a cost-effective(1) and convenient(2) way to invest in Gold as well as diversify their Gold holdings.
The highlights of the new offering are:
• Gold stored in Switzerland: ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (SGOL) will custody
all of its physical gold bullion in secure LBMA approved vaults in Zurich, Switzerland
offering diversification benefits across issuer, custodian and geographies.
• Physically-backed: ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (SGOL) are backed by
allocated physical gold bullion that meets London Bullion Market Association (LBMA)
“good delivery”(4)standards.
• Low cost : ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (SGOL) expense ratio of 0.39% is
the lowest priced physically-backed gold product offered in the US ETF
market(3)
Transparent: Gold bars underlying ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (SGOL) will
undergo a bi-annual inspection performed by an independent external auditor. All
Gold bar identification numbers will be published on www.etfsecurities.com
Commenting on the new product launch Fred Jheon, Head of Product and Business Development said: “We are very pleased to achieve another milestone and continue our aggressive push into the US exchange traded products market and offer ETFS Physical Swiss Gold shares (Ticker: SGOL) to investors. SGOL is now the lowest cost physically-backed gold product and represents an efficient way to gain exposure and diversify into physical gold vaulted in Switzerland. And as we build the business, we will continue to look at innovative and pragmatic ways to offer investors exciting new products.”
Commenting on the positive flows in assets, William Rhind, Head of Sales & Marketing for ETFS Marketing LLC, commented: “The launch of ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (SGOL –“Swiss Gold”) represents another historic landmark for ETF Securities. We are very excited to be able to offer the first physical Gold ETF in the US market to be backed by gold stored in Switzerland. SGOL builds on the initial success of our first product, ETFS Physical Silver (SIVR). We’re delighted with the response we’ve had from investors so far. The feedback we’ve received from clients on the cost effective nature of the product and Swiss Gold custody has been extremely encouraging.
ETFS Physical Silver Shares are issued by the ETFS Silver Trust. And ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares are issued by the ETFS Gold Trust.
For more information on the new issue or ETF Securities please contact the US marketing
agent, ETFS Marketing on 212-918-4954 or visit our website: www.etfsecurities.com
Emerging Global Advisors Lists Emerging Global Shares Dow Jones Emerging Markets Financials Titans Index Fund ETF on NYSE Arca
September 16, 2009--NYSE Euronext announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, NYSE Arca, today began trading the Emerging
Global Shares Dow Jones Emerging Markets Financials Titans Index Fund
(Ticker: EFN). The ETF is sponsored by Emerging Global Advisors.
The fund seeks to achieve its investment objective of total return by
investing in the constituent securities of the Dow Jones Emerging
Markets Financials Titans Index (the “Underlying Index”). The
Underlying Index is a stock market index comprised of 30 leading
“Emerging Markets” companies that Dow Jones Indexes deems to be part of
the “Financials” sector of the global economy, which generally includes
companies whose businesses involve banking, insurance, real estate, and
financial services.
SEC Announces New Division of Risk, Strategy, and Financial Innovation
Professor Henry Hu Named First Director
September 16, 2009--Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary L. Schapiro today announced that University of Texas School of Law Professor Henry T. C. Hu has been named Director of the newly-established Division of Risk, Strategy, and Financial Innovation
The new division combines the Office of Economic Analysis, the Office of Risk Assessment, and other functions to provide the Commission with sophisticated analysis that integrates economic, financial, and legal disciplines. The division's responsibilities cover three broad areas: risk and economic analysis; strategic research; and financial innovation.
"This new division will enhance our capabilities and help identify developing risks and trends in the financial markets," said Chairman Schapiro. "By combining economic, financial, and legal analysis in a single group, this new unit will foster a fresh approach to exchanging ideas and upgrading agency expertise."
Chairman Schapiro continued, "I am pleased Professor Hu agreed to accept this leadership role. His vast understanding of the complexities of the markets will be put to good use on behalf of investors as he leads this new division. I welcome Henry to the SEC, and look forward to benefitting from his insightful counsel."
Professor Hu said, "I am honored that Chairman Schapiro has asked me to be the director of this new division at this seminal time. The derivatives revolution, the rise of hedge funds and institutional investors, technological change, and other factors have transformed both capital markets and corporate governance. I look forward to working with the Commission and to using an interdisciplinary approach that is informed by law and modern finance and economics, as well as developments in real world products and practices on Wall Street and Main Street."
OOK, Inc. files with the SEC
September 16, 2009--OOK, INC. has filed a Preliminary Prospectus with the SEC.
view filing
TXF FUNDS, INC. files prospectus with the SEC.
September 16, 2009--TXF Funds have filed for a prospectus with the SEC.
VIEW FILING
ShariahShares Exchange-Traded Fund files with SEC
September 16, 2009-ShariahShares has filed an amended application for exemptive relief with the SEC.
The Initial Index Funds are the ShariahShares FTSE USA Fund and the ShariahShares FTSE Developed ex-US Fund.
The ShariahShares FTSE USA Fund will seek investment results that correspond, before fees and expenses, generally to the price and yield performance of the FTSE Shariah USA Index. The FTSE Shariah USA Index is market capitalization weighted and comprises of large and mid cap U.S. stocks. As of August 31, 2009, the FTSE Shariah USA Index consisted of approximately 241 stocks.8
The ShariahShares FTSE Developed ex-US Fund will seek investment results that correspond, before fees and expenses, generally to the price and yield performance of the FTSE Shariah Developed ex US Index. The FTSE Shariah Developed ex US Index is market capitalization weighted and represents the developed stock markets outside of the United States. It comprises 25 of the 48 countries in the standard FTSE GEIS Index Series, not including Frontier Markets. The countries included are: Australia, Austria, Belgium/Luxembourg, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong
Invesco PowerShares files with SEC
September 16, 2009- InvescoPoweshares has filed a prospectus with the SEC.
The fund is:
PowerShares Build America Bond Portfolio.
The investment objective of the Fund is to replicate as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the price and yield of the Build America Bond Index.
PowerShares Capital Management LLC is the Advisor.