Alpcot Capital Management launches Europe's first actively managed equity ETF
					
Fund to offer investors the benefits of active management within an ETF structure
February 21, 2012--Alpcot Capital Management (Alpcot), a leading asset manager focused on investing in Eastern Europe, has today announced the launch of Europe's first actively managed equity ETF.
					
The physically-backed fund Alpcot Active Greater Russia aims to achieve long-term capital appreciation through investing in the securities of issuers based in the 'Greater Russia' region, i.e. Russia and other CIS region states. The Luxembourg-domiciled UCITS IV - compliant fund today lists its ETF Share Class on NASDAQ OMX in Stockholm, and is targeting retail and institutional investors locally, but is also open to professional investors across Europe. Alpcot Active is organised as an investment company registered under Part I of the Luxembourg law of 17 December 2010 on undertakings for collective investment.
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Source: Alpcot Capital Management 
						
French Parliament to Vote on Financial-Transaction Tax, VAT
					
February 21, 2012--France's lower chamber of Parliament will probably today pass President Nicolas Sarkozy's bills to create a tax on financial transactions and to increase the country's main value-added tax to 21.2 percent.
					
The parliament in Paris will debate the two bills, which are part of a revised 2012 budget law, later today. The Senate is scheduled vote tomorrow. The increase in VAT, a sales tax, from 19.6 percent will be enacted in October.
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Source: Bloomberg Businessweek
						
Esma enlists regulators for commodities taskforce
					
February 20, 2012--The European Securities and Markets Authority has appointed two senior UK regulators to head up its newly created commodities task force, which will be tasked with managing the slew of regulations that are set to overhaul European commodity markets. 
					
Last week, Esma revealed that it had appointed Martin Wheatley and David Lawton to head up its commodity task force at a meeting of its board of supervisors in November.
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Source: Financial News
						
LME says it has received several first-round bids
					
February 20, 2012--The London Metal Exchange (LME) has received a good number of first-round bids for the 130-year-old bourse, the world's largest metals market place, an LME spokesman said on Friday.
					
Separate sources familiar with the situation said the list includes NYSE/Euronext (NYX.N). Around half of the 15 or so parties that had shown interest in the LME had made initial offers.
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Source: Reuters
						
Tradition and Nomura launch Navesis-ETF, the first MTF that facilitates NAV-based trading of ETFs
					
New trading platform provides a more efficient and transparent way to trade
ETFs, referencing NAV
February 20, 2012--Navesis-ETF, the new fully electronic trading platform designed to enhance the way exchange traded funds (ETFs) are traded, launches today. 
					
The platform is a joint venture
between Tradition, the global interdealer broker, and Nomura, the global investment bank and leading
market maker in ETFs.
In the rapidly evolving ETF environment, Navesis-ETF has been designed to increase transparency and efficiency, boost market liquidity, reduce costs and be fully regulatory-compliant. The platform will allow market participants, including institutional traders, sell-side banks and market makers, to engage in intraday and auction trading; referencing net asset value (NAV) prices in the ETF primary market, with cross asset class coverage, for the first time.
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Source: Nomura
						
Interview with Deborah Furh-ETF Radar Magazine
					
February 20, 2012--Deborah Fuhr, Independent ETF Strategist, talks about the latest industry trends, investor education as a never-ending process, arising challenges and her personal plans for 2012.
					
Debbie, in the last months one could read and hear a lot of transparency initiatives started by several ETF issuers. Was this (in some cases) just nice marketing or has the ETF industry already reached a deep and reliable level of transparency?
Daily transparency of the securities in an ETF has been of the Unique Selling Points, or USPs of ETFs since the launch of the first ETF the Toronto 35 Index Participation Units (TIPs) on March 9, 1990 – nearly twenty-two years ago – in Canada on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Providers of ETFs have been reacting since the financial crisis in 2008 to investors requests for greater transparency by providing details of swap counterparties and collateral for synthetic ETFs and more recently on securities lending activities including the average and maximum amount of securities on loan, collateral levels, composition, frequently-used counterparties and the net returns to the fund for physical ETFs.
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Source: etf Radar Magazine
						
12 new Commerzbank ETNs launched on Xetra
					
February 20, 2012--Twelve new exchange-traded notes (ETNs) issued by Commerzbank AG have been tradable on Xetra since Monday.
					
The twelve new exchange-traded notes track both the positive and the inverse performance of the benchmarks DJIA Index Futures, NASDAQ-100 Futures and S&P 500® Futures with a respective leverage factor of three or four. 
The underlying indices are strategy indices which participate in the price movement of the reference entity and consist of a leverage component and an interest rate component.
ETNs are tradable notes that track the performance of underlying reference indices outside of the commodities sector and provide investors with access to additional asset classes.
Deutsche Börse’s ETN segment product range currently comprises 123 instruments. The monthly trading volume of ETNs on Xetra averages around €100 million.
view list of the new ETNs
					
Source: Deutsche Börse
						
Britons' financial fears ease as inflation dips to 3.6 pct
					
February 20, 2012--Britons are becoming less worried about their finances as inflation eases and employers look more prepared to raise wages, surveys showed on Monday, further fuelling hopes that consumers may lend the fragile economy some support this year.
					
The improvement in the Markit Household Finance Index survey adds to evidence that consumers are slowly regaining confidence, supporting the Bank of England’s view that consumption will start growing again this year. Mortgage lending rose and house prices picked up in January. Households reported the lowest degree of pessimism about future finances since April 2010, survey compiler Markit said. The measure of current finances, Markit’s Household Finance Index, rose to 38.7 in February from 36.4 in January, still well below the 50 mark separating improvement from deterioration but the least downbeat reading since December 2010. “These positive developments meant that debt levels stabilised and households’ appetite for major purchases moved back to levels not seen since the VAT (sales tax) rise in January 2011,” said Markit economist Tim Moore.
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Source: FT.com
						
Eurex Exchange to expand dividend derivatives segment 
					
Ten new contracts to be listed on 2 March 2012
February 20, 2012--The international derivatives market Eurex Exchange is further expanding its successful dividend derivatives segment by launching a total of ten new dividend futures on 2 March 2012. These new futures are based on dividends from selected sector indices; out of the EURO STOXX sector and STOXX Europe 600 sector indices the sectors banking, insurance, oil & gas, telecommunications and utilities will be covered. 
					
Consultation revealed the greatest demand among market participants for these dividend sector indices. 
The product specifications of the new futures are similar to the products already listed. The contracts are settled in cash and denominated in euro, trading hours are from 8.30 a.m. – 5.30 p.m. CET. A market making incentive scheme will be offered in order to provide a liquid order book from the start. To offer an attractive alternative to the swap-based trading, Eurex offers central clearing for bilateral trading in the new products every trading day via Eurex Exchange's “block trading” OTC trade entry facility. The minimum transaction size is one contract.
The first products in the dividend-based derivatives segment were launched in June 2008. In 2011, more than 23,000 contracts were traded on average each day, equating to six million contracts in total. In January 2012, average daily volume further increased to 26,000 contracts. Open interest currently stands at almost 2.0 million contracts, which is equal to a nominal dividend amount of around 13 billion euros.
 
					
Source: Eurex
						
Commission reform poses threat to IFAs
					
February 20, 2012--Mid-sized retail investment groups are expecting a surge in new business because of new regulations set to be introduced next year.
					
Independent financial advisers have responded to the changes by outsourcing investment management, joining larger firms, or closing their doors altogether.
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Source: FT.com
						
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