Dow Jones STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 Index Licensed to iShares to Underlie Exchange-Traded Fund
October 9, 2009--STOXX Limited, the leading European index provider, today announced that the Dow Jones STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 Index has been licensed to iShares to serve as the basis for an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The new ETF will be available on Deutsche Boerse today.
"The Dow Jones STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 Index follows a unique methodology where the component weightings are based on dividend yield rather than the traditional market capitalization weighting. This offers a uniquely structured tool that allows market participants to access the performance of high-dividend paying global companies," said Ricardo Manrique, chief executive officer, STOXX Ltd. "iShares' decision to launch an ETF on this index complements its existing ETF lineup based on other Dow Jones and Dow Jones STOXX Select Dividend Indexes, which provide exposure to single countries and specific regions."
Launched on February 21, 2007, the Dow Jones STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 Index comprises the 100 highest dividend-yielding stocks worldwide. It consists of 40 stocks from the Americas, as well as of 30 stocks each from Europe and Asia/Pacific. As of October 8, 2009, the index was up 28.59% for the year.
To be eligible for inclusion in the Dow Jones STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 Index, a company must have a positive historical five-year dividend-per-share growth rate and a dividend-to-earnings-per-share ratio of less than or equal to 60% in Europe and the Americas, and 80% in Asia/Pacific in the current year, or be a previous component.
The weight of individual components in the Dow Jones STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 Index is restricted to 15% in order to prevent the index from being dominated by single high-dividend paying stocks. The index is reviewed on an annual basis in March. Price and total return indexes are calculated in euro and U.S. dollar. Daily historical data are available back to December 31, 1998.
Further information on the Dow Jones STOXX Indexes is available at www.stoxx.com.
Source: Dow Jones Indexes
Scoach Launches Index for Reverse Convertibles
October 11, 2009-As of today, Scoach, the Frankfurt exchange for structured products, offers investors the Scoach reverse convertibles index. This new barometer enables investors to immediately track average, market-weighted performance of reverse convertibles in different market phases.
Since the flat-rate withholding tax has gone into force thus ending tax discrimination of reverse convertibles, this product has been gaining in investor popularity. "With the Scoach reverse convertibles index, we are promptly addressing our clients' increased interest in information and supplying representative market tracking based on volume actually invested," said Christian Reuss, CEO of Scoach Europa AG.
The Scoach reverse convertibles index is composed of 20 reverse convertibles selected by the European Derivatives Group (EDG). Each month, EDG determines these representative products by volume invested. The Dow Jones EURO STOXX 50® Index serves as the basis.
The new reverse convertibles index supplements Scoach's existing certificate index family. Scoach has already been publishing indices on discount, bonus, outperformance and guarantee certificates since October 2008. These successful indices are used by professional investors, among others, to benchmark comparable investment strategies.
Just as its predecessors, the Scoach reverse convertibles index is calculated by Deutsche Börse Market Data & Analytics and disseminated via the CEF® data feeds
Source: Scoach
Eurex to Launch First Futures Contract Based on Asian index
October 11, 2009--The international derivatives exchange Eurex announced today, that it will launch a new equity index future based on the MSCI Japan on 26 October 2009. With this extension, Europe’s largest derivatives exchange continues to broaden its coverage of major foreign benchmark indices. The new future will be its first derivative based on an Asian equity index.
“The MSCI Japan future extends our existing suite of foreign equity indices, among them the MSCI Russia future”, said Peter Reitz, member of the Eurex Executive Board. “Nowadays, many participants in financial markets invest globally. The Japanese cash market is the largest and most important market in Asia. With our MSCI Japan future we enable our European and US customers, in particular, to better hedge their Japanese equity exposure and offer at the same time new trading opportunities.” He pointed out, that the MSCI Japan index represents approximately 85 percent of the market capitalization of Japanese stocks. The MSCI Japan index comprises nearly 350 of the largest companies listed on the main Japanese cash markets.
The new future will be denominated in US dollar, settled in cash and will have quarterly expiration dates. As underlying it uses the net total return version of the MSCI Japan, which is the standard in the OTC market (Total Return Swaps) as well as with investment funds and exchange-traded funds.
To support order book trading, a market making scheme will be initiated to ensure on-screen liquidity. Trading hours will be from 8 am until 10 pm CET. In order to be in line with the Japanese market, settlement day will be the second instead of the third Friday, usually used for other Eurex index futures.
Source: Eurex
New iShares strategy ETF launched on Xetra
An additional equity based index fund from the ETF offering of iShares
(Barclays Global Investors) has been admitted to trading on Xetra®.
October 11, 2009--ETF name: iShares DJ STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 (DE)
Asset class: equity index ETF
ISIN: DE000A0F5UH1
Management fee: 0.47 percent
Distribution policy: distributing
Benchmark: DJ STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 Index
The new iShares ETF tracks the performance of the DJ STOXX Global Select
Dividend 100 Index, which enables investors a worldwide diversification
with
their investment in companies with high dividend yields. The index
comprises 40
companies from North-America, 30 from Europe and another 30 from the
Asian-Pacific region which distribute the highest dividends in relation to
their share price.
Source: Deutsche Börse
New iShares strategy ETF launched on Xetra
An additional equity based index fund from the ETF offering of iShares
(Barclays Global Investors) has been admitted to trading on Xetra®.
October 11, 2009--ETF name: iShares DJ STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 (DE)
Asset class: equity index ETF
ISIN: DE000A0F5UH1
Management fee: 0.47 percent
Distribution policy: distributing
Benchmark: DJ STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 Index
The new iShares ETF tracks the performance of the DJ STOXX Global Select
Dividend 100 Index, which enables investors a worldwide diversification
with
their investment in companies with high dividend yields. The index
comprises 40
companies from North-America, 30 from Europe and another 30 from the
Asian-Pacific region which distribute the highest dividends in relation to
their share price.
Source: Deutsche Börse
FESE Response To CESR Proposal For A Pan-European Short Selling Disclosure Regime
October 9, 2009--The Federation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE) represents the Market Operators of 42 securities
exchanges active in equities, bonds, and derivatives in the European Union (EU) and Iceland, Norway and
Switzerland.
We welcome the work that CESR has carried out since September 2008 with regard to the measures adopted by its
Members on short selling practices. Several EU securities regulators have adopted measures introducing stringent
disclosure / reporting requirements by firms to supervisory authorities.
We understand the rationale behind the
measures taken by the authorities as extreme market conditions triggered extreme measures to seek restoring
confidence in the markets. However, notwithstanding the laudable intentions, the restrictions imposed by several
authorities in the EU have been both discriminatory and ineffective:
1) The restrictions on short-selling have been discriminatory because of their scope of instruments and venues.
Firstly, in some jurisdictions the short-selling restrictions applied to certain cash equities only and did not cover other instruments that fulfil a similar function in the market (e.g. futures and options that allow investors to profit when the stock or the index declines).
Secondly, the restrictions applied only to cash equities admitted to trading on a Regulated Market (RM) and not to privately-issued stocks.
Thirdly, in some regimes, the restrictions did not cover trading happening outside of RMs - therefore, the banned stocks could be traded on private markets without limitations. The discriminatory nature of these measures was mainly due to the absence of an appropriate legislative framework that covers instruments traded in multiple execution venues under the supervision of different authorities across Europe. As a result, this situation provided unfair advantages to private OTC markets vis-à-vis RMs (and MTFs) whilst shifting the presumed risk to other venues and instruments not caught by the ban.
2) The restrictions on short-selling have not been effective in reducing share price volatility or limiting share price falls, but rather caused a decline in market efficiency for the affected stocks.
read response
Source: Federation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE)
FESE European Equity Market Report – September 2009 Figures
October 9, 2009--The ‘European Equity Market Report’ which gathers data from all the market segments operated by FESE members (including Regulated Markets and Multilateral Trading Facilities) as well as from the major MTFs operated by investment firms in the European market.
For the first time since the start of MiFID, this Report allows for an accurate comparison of trading statistics across trading venues
European Equity Market Report - Year 2009 (updated with September figures)
Source: FESE
Equity income funds set for comeback
October 9, 2009--Equity income funds, which have suffered in the past year as UK companies cut dividends, could be set for a comeback.
Once a favoured pick of private investors and financial advisers, the funds have suffered a rapid fall from grace.
In August, they were the least popular of all the UK’s managed funds, according to figures from the Investment Management Association. But as recently as September 2008 they were the best-selling funds overall.
read full story
Source: FT.com
LSE Falls To All-Time Low FTSE 100 Market Share - BATS Europe Sets 2nd Straight Record With 9.69%
October 9, 2009--LSE recorded its second consecutive all-time market share low in the FTSE 100 with 57.96% today as BATS Europe set its second record in a row – 9.69%.
BATS Europe was actually well above 10% (10.61%) prior to the LSE’s closing auction. With our September UK pricing special behind us, it is good to see market share increasing across the board – our 4.38% market share today for all of Europe was also a record.
Source: Online News
ETF Landscape: Industry Review, September 2009
October 9, 2009--At the end of August, global ETF assets hit an all time high of US$891Bn, 3.9% above the previous all time high of US$858Bn set in July 2009.
There were 1,773 ETFs with 3,137 listings from 95 providers on 41 exchanges around the world.
Visit Barclays Global for more information.
Source: ETF Research and Implementation Strategy, BGI
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