ATX index offering expanded with new short indices
May 21, 2019--The Vienna Stock Exchange starts today the calculation of new Short Indices on the leading index ATX, Austrian Traded Index. The new indices with a leverage of -12 and -15 are based on the ATX Total Return. The benchmark takes into account the dividend payments of its index members.
With this expanded offer, the Vienna Stock Exchange is responding to the demand of international market participants.The Vienna Stock Exchange calculates more than 140 tradable indices, 103 of which track national, regional or sector developments in the CEE and CIS countries. These indices serve more than 140 financial institutions worldwide as the basis for their products.
view more
Source: wienerborse.at
The latest European growth-rate estimates
May 20, 2019--The quarterly growth rate of the euro area in Q1 2018 was 0.4% (1.5% annualized), considerably higher than the low growth rates of the previous two quarters. This blog reviews the reaction to the release of these numbers and the discussion they have triggered about the euro area's economic challenges.
Two important announcements regarding European economic growth took place in the course of the last two weeks. First, Eurostat announced its preliminary flash estimate for real growth for the euro area and the EU in Q1 2019, on April 30th. And then, on May 7th, the European Commission published its Spring Economic Forecast.
view more
Source: Bruegel
Monday Morning Memo: Multi-Asset is Dead-Long Live Multi-Asset!
May 20, 2019--May 20, 2019--Multi-asset funds have been a hot topic for European investors since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis because there were some funds that showed very limited losses despite the rough market environment. Investor interest reached even higher after the euro crisis in 2011 as a number of funds continued to show quite a stable performance pattern.
As multi-asset funds were the best-selling asset type in Europe overall for 2017, some market observers predicted investor interested peaked that year and may not return to those levels in the foreseeable future. Despite this, even as the overall mutual fund industry in Europe faced outflows over the course of 2018, multi-asset funds were able to gather net inflows.
view more
Source: Refinitiv
EU regulation depresses bond sales to retail investors
May 17, 2019--European issuers of corporate bonds are avoiding sales to retail investors because of demanding disclosure requirements under the EU Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products regulation.
The regulation was drafted to apply to structured products, but lawyers say it has been interpreted to apply to any product...
view more
Source: Smartbrief
Germany: Staff Concluding Statement of the 2019 Article IV Mission
May 17, 2019--Germany's economic fundamentals are sound, public and private balance sheets are healthy, unemployment is at a historical low, wages have finally accelerated, and the large current account surplus is slowly shrinking. However, a slowdown in global demand and other temporary setbacks hit the economy unexpectedly hard in the second half of last year, highlighting its vulnerability to external shocks, notably growing international trade tensions.
From a longer-term perspective, Germany's population is aging and its technological edge is being challenged, while lower incomes have remained stagnant and the energy transition is progressing only slowly. With euro area inflation still below the European Central Bank's objective, long-term interest rates have fallen back near or below zero, putting additional pressure on banks and life insurance companies.
view more
Source: IMF
Raisin launches Savings Plan for German ETF investment platform
May 17, 2019--From saver to investor: building wealth, starting at €50 per month
Raisin, Europe's leading marketplace for savings and investment products, is making investing easy for everyone. Starting on its German platform WeltSparen (www.WeltSparen.de), the Berlin-based fintech Raisin is introducing a savings plan for its line of ETF portfolios.
With the new savings plan Raisin's customers in Germany will be able to build their wealth starting at just €50 per month. The company is additionally lowering the one-time minimum required investment amount to start a WeltInvest portfolio to €500. WeltInvest is the result of WeltSparen's cooperation with Vanguard as fund provider and DAB BNP Paribas. Vanguard is one of the largest providers of cost-efficient investment solutions worldwide.
view more
Source: Raisin GmbH
Better Finance-Efficient Portfolio Management Techniques: Attribution of profits derived from Securities Lending by UCITS Exchange-Traded Funds
May 17, 2019--BETTER FINANCE conducted research on a part of the efficient portfolio management techniques'1 employed by UCITS ETF providers. The sample is limited and may not be representative of the total EU market' but it comprises mainstream ETFs of the ten largest providers in the EU.
The efficient portfolio management technique under review is that of securities lending' by which the securities owner (in this case' the Fund' or its manager on behalf of the fund) temporarily lends its securities to a borrower' for which the borrower provides other
assets in exchange as collateral and a payment (interest) for the loan period.
view more
Source: Better Finance
Investors renew calls for Deutsche Bank to trim investment bank
May 16, 2019-- Deutsche Bank investors are renewing calls for it to scale back its investment bank division ahead of what promises to be a challenging annual shareholder meeting next week.
The future of Deutsche Bank's investment banking operations has returned to the fore after the collapse of merger talks with smaller rival Commerzbank.
view more
Source: Reuters
Factor investing in fixed-income: EDHEC-Risk Institute paper shows that it is possible to build duration-timing strategies that are economically superior to bearing unconditional duration risk
May 16, 2019--The abundance of theoretical and empirical research on factor investing in the equity universe contrasts strongly with the relative scarcity of research on the existence and exploitability of risk premia in bond markets.
Recently, some managers have been focusing on risk premia in fixed income, but the academic knowledge remains limited and it seems that it is not possible to apply the same factors that have been identified for equities in a straightforward way.
It is within this context that EDHEC-Risk Institute has launched a dedicated research programme that aims to broaden the concepts of factor-investing in bond markets by i) analysing the risk factors that drive these universes, ii) finding whether they attract compensation or not, and iii) more generally, examining bond return predictability.
view the Factor Investing in Sovereign Bond Markets-A Time-Series Perspective
Source: EDHEC-Risk Institute
Investec Closes Click & Invest Robo-Advice Service
May 16, 2019--Investment giant Investec says the appetite for robo-advice services has been lower than expected
The business, created by investment giant Investec, said appetite for the service "remains low" and that the market is growing at a slower rate than it had expected.
Investec is writing to customers who use the service to start a process to move their investments elsewhere over the next 90 days.
view more
Source: morningstar.co.uk