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FINRA Warns Investors of Marijuana Stock Scams
August 20, 2013--The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) issued a new Investor Alert called Marijuana Stock Scams to warn investors about potential related scams.
Medical marijuana is legal in almost 20 states, and recreational use of the drug was recently legalized in two states. As a result, the cannabis business has been getting a lot of attention – including the attention of scammers. Like many investment scams, pitches for marijuana stocks may arrive in a variety of ways – from faxes to email or text message invitations, to webinars, infomercials, tweets or blog posts.
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Source: FINRA
Are you ready? New Swap Trading Requirements For Pension Plan Asset Managers
August 20, 2013--The Dodd-Frank Act and its implementing regulations bring significant new regulatory oversight to the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives markets. As the markets respond, the menu
of derivatives instruments available to asset managers, and
the costs associated with those instruments, will change significantly.
As the first new swap rules have come into effect earlier this year, market participants have started to identify
risks and costs, as well as opportunities, arising from this new
regulatory landscape.
For US pension plans and separately managed accounts, mandatory swap clearing for certain interest rate swaps (IRS) and credit default swaps (CDS) is required by September 9, 2013. This memorandum highlights some of the steps that affected asset managers must take to prepare for clearing and other regulatory requirements.
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Source: Consultant 360 (BNY Mellon)
Horizons ETFs announces unit consolidation for HXT
August 20, 2013--Horizons ETFs Management (Canada) Inc. ("Horizons ETFs"), the manager and trustee of the Horizons S&P/TSX 60TM Index ETF (the "ETF" or "HXT"), listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") under the symbols HXT and HXT.U, has announced today that it intends to consolidate the units of the ETF as indicated in the table below.
Unit Consolidation
After the close of trading on Friday, September 6, 2013 on the TSX, the units of HXT will be consolidated on the basis of the ratio (the "Consolidation Ratio") set out below, and will begin trading on a post consolidated basis on Monday, September 9, 2013,...
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Source: Horizons ETFs Management (Canada) Inc.
AGF U.S. AlphaSector Class Rethinks Risk from a Client's Perspective
August 19, 2013--AGF Investments Inc. today introduced AGF U.S. AlphaSector Class, an innovative solution for Canadian advisors seeking to manage their clients' portfolio risk in volatile markets. The fund offers a different approach to risk by managing the impact of down markets.
"Canadian investors are conservative by nature and market volatility often leaves them on the sidelines," said Gordon Forrester, Executive Vice-President, Product and Marketing and Head of Retail, AGF Investments Inc. "This fund addresses a Canadian market need with a unique solution that considers risk from a client's perspective. We are pleased to introduce this innovative investment strategy to Canada."
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Source: Wall Street Journal
Federal Reserve Board Releases Paper On Capital Planning At Large Bank Holding Companies
August 19, 2013--Large bank holding companies have considerably improved their capital planning processes in recent years, but have more work to do to enhance their practices for assessing the capital they need to withstand stressful economic and financial conditions, the Federal Reserve said in a paper released on Monday.
In the paper, the Federal Reserve discussed in detail its expectations for internal capital planning at large bank holding companies and described the range of practices it has observed at these companies during the past three Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) exercises. The Federal Reserve conducts the CCAR annually to help ensure that companies have forward-looking capital planning processes that account for their unique risks and result in sufficient capital to enable the institutions to continue lending to households and businesses during times of economic and financial stress.
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Source: FRB
Obama asks regulators to speed up Wall Street reforms
August 19, 2013--President Barack Obama called top U.S. financial regulators to the White House on Monday, instructing them to speed up Wall Street reforms in the face of intense bank lobbying.
Roughly five years after the depths of the financial crisis, regulators have completed about 40 percent of the rules called for in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law.
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Source: CNBC
Top Canadian Discount Brokerages with Commission Free ETFs
August 19, 2013--A young reader who is currently in University emailed me about investing possibilities. The student's financial situation is relatively stable where he has excess cash after paying tuition from a summer part time job.
Typically, I recommend paying down debt before starting the investing route, but in this case, he has no debt and no foreseeable future expenses (house etc).
In this case, the student has small amounts per month to invest and is interested in investing in the stock market. In the past when investing small amounts per month, low cost mutual funds were the way to go because they avoid commissions with every purchase. While ETFs are lower cost overall with lower management expense ratios (MERs), investing a small amount monthly would be quite expensive with the trading fees.
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Source: Milliondollarjournay.com
DB-Synthetic Equity & Index Strategy-North America-US ETF Market Weekly Review-Equity ETPs dominated the weekly flows with $5.6bn in net redemptions
August 19, 2013--Data in this report is as of Fri, Aug 16th
Market and Net Cash Flows Review
Equity markets pulled back during last week. The US (S&P 500) fell by 2.10%; while, outside the US, the MSCI EAFE (in USD) slightly dropped by 0.07% and the MSCI EM (USD) rose by 0.76%.
In the meantime, performance was negative across all US sectors. Real Estate (-6.79%) and Utilities (-4.36%) recorded the biggest drop; The DB Liquid Commodity Index rose by 2.79%. Similarly, the Agriculture sector (DB Diversified Agriculture Index), the WTI Crude Oil, Gold and Silver prices rose by 1.47%, 1.41%, 4.75% and 13.13%, respectively. Moving into other asset classes, the 10Y US Treasury Yield rose 27 bps ending at 2.84%. Last but not least, Volatility (VIX) rose by 7.16% during the same period.
The total US ETP flows from all products registered $6.5bn (-0.4% of AUM) of outflows during last week vs. $0.3bn (+0.0%) of inflows the previous week, setting the YTD weekly flows average at +$3.2bn (+$107.2bn YTD in total cash flows). Last week’s outflows were greatly influenced by SPY, which saw $6.3bn in net redemptions.
Equity, Fixed Income and Commodity ETPs experienced flows of -$5.6bn (-0.5%), -$1.1bn (-0.4%) and +$0.2bn (+0.3%) last week vs. +$1.2bn (+0.1%), -$0.8bn (-0.3%) and -$34mn (-0.0%) in the previous week, respectively.
Among US sectors, Information Technology (+$0.1bn, +0.5%) and Energy (+$0.1bn, +0.0%) received the top inflows, while Financials (-$1.0bn, -1.8%) and Consumer Discretionary (-$0.7bn, -7.4%) experienced the largest outflows.
Top 3 ETPs & ETNs by inflows: EFA (+$0.6bn), VGK (+$0.4bn), EZU (+$0.3bn)
Top 3 ETPs & ETNs by outflows: SPY (-$6.3bn), IYR (-$0.6bn), EWZ (-$0.5bn)
New Launch Calendar: EM income and fundamental factors
There were seven new ETFs listed during the previous week on the NYSE Arca. EGShares added one new product offering access to high-yielding stocks in Emerging Markets; meanwhile, Charles Schwab launched six fundamental factor ETFs offering exposure to the US, DM ex US and EM with focus on Small Cap, Large Cap and Broad markets.
Turnover Review: Floor activity increased by 27.3%
Total weekly turnover increased by 27.3% to $274.2bn vs. $215.4bn from the previous week. Last week's turnover level was 1.7% over last year's weekly average. Equity, Fixed Income and Commodity ETPs turnover increased by $46.5bn (+24.4%), $7.3bn (+51.2%) and $4.6bn (+58.7%) during the same period, respectively.
Assets under Management (AUM) Review: assets dropped by $23bn
US ETP assets dropped by $22.8bn (-1.5%) totaling $1.501 trillion at the end of the week. As of last Friday, US ETPs had accumulated an asset growth of +12.6% YTD. Assets for Equity, Fixed Income and Commodity ETPs moved -$23.1bn, -$3.4bn and +$3.8bn during last week, respectively.
Visit https://eqindex.db.com/etf/ for report
Source: Deutsche Bank-Synthetic Equity & Index Strategy-North America
Bank of the West Adds to Investment Advisory Solutions with Introduction of Proprietary ETF Portfolios
August 19, 2013--Bank of the West Wealth Management today announced the launch of Bank of the West ETF portfolios. The portfolios incorporate ETFs selected by the group's Investment Advisory and Management Team to provide exposure to a global set of investment opportunities.
Combined with the Bank's recently launched mutual fund portfolios, the ETF portfolios mark the second major enhancement to its open architecture Investment Advisory Solutions (IAS) platform in the past several months. Previously, these portfolios were only available to the firm's Trust Services clients.
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Source: PR Newswire
Direxion Announces Reverse And Forward Share Splits Of Nine ETFs
August 19, 2013-- Direxion, a leader in alternative investment solutions, has announced it will execute reverse share splits for seven of its leveraged exchange-traded funds ("ETFs"), as well as forward share splits for another two leveraged ETFs.
The total market value of the shares outstanding will not be affected as a result of these splits, except with respect to the redemption of fractional shares.
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Source: Yahoo Finance