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Japan seeks to ease business debt burden
October 9, 2009--The Japanese government is expected on Friday to outline a scheme to help small and medium-sized companies seek a reprieve on debt repayments of up to three years, as part of a broad programme to help businesses weather the impact of the global downturn.
The scheme being considered aims to make it easier for borrowers to ask their bank for an extension of principal and interest payments for a maximum of three years and would be limited to small businesses and individuals with mortgages who have lost their jobs.
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Source: FT.com
BSE allows trade in Nifty ETFs
October 9, 2009--The Bombay Stock Exchange’s (BSE’s) benchmark index, the Sensex, may be more talked about and valuable as a brand compared with the National Stock Exchange’s (NSE’s) Nifty, but the latter brings more business for NSE. Now, the Nifty may bring business for BSE, too, as the country’s oldest exchange has decided to allow trading in all exchange-traded funds (ETFs) listed on its rival exchange. These include Nifty-based ETF.
BSE has allowed ETFs listed on NSE to be traded on its platform as permitted securities. For this, the promoter of the ETF will not have to pay any listing fee. BSE, around two weeks ago, allowed trading in NSE’s gold ETFs. On October 7, it gave permission for trading of all NSE’s ETFs, including Nifty Bees, which reflects the Nifty’s movements.
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Source: Business Standard
Asia steps in to slow dollar’s fall
October 8, 2009-Asian central banks intervened heavily in the currency markets on Thursday to stem the appreciation of their currencies against the US dollar amid fears that their exports could be losing ground against China.
The mainly south-east Asian countries have been spurred to defend the competitiveness of their currencies by China’s decision to in effect re-peg the renminbi to the dollar since July last year.
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Source: FT.com
Gold ETFs: Volumes high; firm Re caps return
October 8, 2009--Record gold prices may be deterring jewellery buyers, but they are triggering trading interest in Gold Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). All gold-ETFs have seen volumes double in the last two days. GoldBEeS, which saw an average of 22,000 units traded last week, has seen a surge to 42,000 trades in the last two days.
However, Indian investors who bet on gold-ETFs a month ago have not participated actively in the recent rally. Their returns have been depressed, capped by the rising rupee. Despite the 5 per cent run up in international gold prices in the last one month, prices for domestic gold-ETFs are where they were last month. GoldBEeS, Benchmark Mutual Fund’s gold-ETF, which closed flat in Wednesday’s trade, has been hovering around Rs 1,570-levels for the last one month.
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Source: Hindu Business Line
DB Index Research -- Weekly ETF Reports -- Asia-Pacific
October 7, 2009--Highlights
Market Overview
There are 184 equity based ETFs in the Asia Pacific region with 240 listings across 12 countries and 15 exchanges. Japan has the largest market share by AUM accounting for 42.11% of the whole market, whilst China has the largest market share by turnover with 47.84%.
There was one new listing in the last week. Nikko Asset Management listed one new fixed income ETF on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Turnover
Monthly average daily turnover declined 16.4% in the last week. Turnover for the previous week was USD 1024m. The largest ETF by turnover was the China 50 ETF issued by China Asset Management with USD 271m accounting for 26.5% of total turnover.
Assets Under Management
AUM declined 1.9% in the previous week. AUM as of Oct 5th were USD 57.7bn. The largest ETF by AUM is the TOPIX ETF, managed by Nomura Asset Management, with AUM of USD 6.4bn.
To request a copy of the report click here
Source: Aram Flores and Shan Lan -DB Index Research
Ex-Deutsche team sets up Asian debt venture
October 7, 2009--A team of distressed debt traders who resigned from Deutsche Bank earlier this year have set up their own boutique investment bank in Hong Kong.
SC Lowy, which opened on Thursday, will deal exclusively in distressed and illiquid investments across Asia, an asset class that has become increasingly fashionable among banks and hedge funds since the financial crisis struck.
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Source: FT.com
FMC divided over allowing gold ETF trading on SEs
October 6, 2009-It is the most hassle-free route for retail investors to take an exposure to the yellow metal. But just as the gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) Gold ETFs: Safer bet in crisis
Gold brings stability to portfolio
Investing in gold a safe bet
Gold: A safe option
were gaining in popularity, a tricky question has risen as to who should be regulating them, and whether gold ETFs should be allowed to be traded on the stock exchanges, as they are being now.
According to people familiar with the development, the consumer affairs ministry has posed this question to the law ministry, since the underlying for gold ETFs is a commodity, and should logically fall under the purview of the forward markets commission (FMC).
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Source: Economic Times
Asian institutions sticking with portfolio strategies
October 5, 2009--Asian institutions are joining their peers in other markets by refraining from making wholesale changes to their portfolio investment strategies in the wake of the global financial crisis.
However, the results of Greenwich Associates' 2009 Asian Investment Management Study reveal that institutions across Asia (excluding Japan) are reconsidering plans to outsource more of their assets to external investment managers after a year in which many managers fell far short of performance expectations.
Among Asian institutions, average fixed income allocations increased to 68.6 per cent of total assets in 2009 from 62.5 per cent in 2008
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Source: ETF Express
TSE launches New Options System “Tdex+ System”
October 5, 2009--Tokyo Stock Exchange, Inc. (“TSE”) is pleased to announce today the
successful launch of “Tdex+ System”, a new trading platform for options
contracts. Tdex+ System, is the advanced electronic trading system based on
LIFFE CONNECT®, which has been used by NYSE Liffe, the largest European
derivatives exchange by trading value, and is highly rated for its
performance and functionality by investors worldwide. With the introduction
of Tdex+ System, order processing performance is dramatically improved to 6
milliseconds of order response* and about 20 thousand transactions per
second. Functionality for strategy trades is enhanced as well.
In addition to this, TSE also introduced the Market Maker scheme for all
listed options contracts today. Multiple market makers started to quote bid
and offer continuously for not only Options on JGB Futures, which have
already high liquidity, but also TOPIX Options and Equity Options.
Source: NYSE EURONEXT
HKEx Publishes Consultation Conclusions On Proposed Changes To Filing And Checklist Requirements For Listing Of Equity Securities
October 2, 2009--Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) today (Friday) published its Consultation Conclusions on Proposed Changes to Filing and Checklist Requirements for Listing of Equity Securities (Consultation Conclusions).
On 26 June this year, HKEx published a consultation paper on proposals to streamline the listing process for initial public offerings and for listing of equity securities by listed issuers.
HKEx received a total of 25 submissions. Overall market feedback indicated full support for the proposals.
"We are encouraged by the broad support. We believe that the streamlined listing process will shorten preparation time, lower costs and reduce the paperwork burden. This has been achieved without making any substantive changes in content requirements," said Mark Dickens, HKEx's Head of Listing.
"We will continue our efforts to further improve our listing process without compromising market quality," Mr Dickens added.
The Consultation Conclusions can be downloaded from the "Market Consultation - Consultation Conclusions" section of the HKEx website.
Amendments to the Listing Rules can be downloaded from the "Regulatory Framework and Rules - Rules and Guidelines on Listing Matters - Listing Rule Update for Main Board Listing Rules" and the "Regulatory Framework and Rules - Rules and Guidelines on Listing Matters - Listing Rule Update/Interpretation for GEM Listing Rules" sections of the HKEx website.
The Listing Rule amendments will become effective on 2 November 2009.
Source: Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx)