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German investors targeting 'risk-less returns', says Complementa
November 9, 2010--Risk management in Germany has improved in the wake of the financial crisis, and institutional investors are now focusing on 'risk-less returns', according to consultancy Complementa.
In a survey of nearly 50 institutional investors, with combined assets under management of more than €40bn, Complementa found that the crisis had shifted respondents' focus toward capital preservation and maximising the target return without increasing risk.
EU president strikes down idea of European tax
November 9, 2010--- The president of the European Union struck a major blow Tuesday to the concept of a Europe-wide tax, proposed last month by the European Commission but opposed by heavyweights France and Germany.
"I do not think that redesigning the way the EU gets its revenue is a top priority," Herman Van Rompuy said in a speech in Berlin.
"I am personally open to new ideas, but since most alternative sources of income would risk hitting member states unequally, this would weaken the fairness of the current system, its built-in solidarity.
FESE members deliver on their commitments to facilitate Equity Market Data Consolidation
November 8, 2010--In July 2010, FESE members committed1 to a number of key steps in order to further contribute to an industry?led efficient consolidation of equity market data. The purpose of this report is to give a
progress update and further details on the on?going work of FESE members to market participants and policy makers.
Context of FESE’s actions:
Regulated Markets (RMs) fully support the industry?led consolidation of equity market data. RMs’ data
is of excellent quality, widely available, easily consolidatable with other data, and provided to users at a
reasonable cost. According to a recent research study entitled “The cost of access to real time pre & post trade order book data in Europe,”2 the expenditure on the cost of data from exchanges accounts for 8% to 15% of total data consolidation costs. The study also shows that the cost of data charged by the largest exchanges in Europe (75 EUR a month) is about the same as the cost charged in the US (70
EUR), a market often cited as a reference point. Thus, exchanges’ user fees are not only commensurate
with the value and the quality of RMs’ data, but they also represent only a minor portion of the overall
cost of consolidation in both absolute and relative terms.
Background note on the alternative investment fund managers directive
November 8, 2010--Over a year in the making, the Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFM) directive - widely known as the "hedge funds" directive - is reaching the final stages of approval. This note answers some basic questions about what is to be regulated and why. It also explains some more technical issues to do with the "passport" system for marketing funds across the EU. Finally, it also compares the EU institutions' starting positions, and shows the final outcomes, on the most controversial issues.
What are alternative investment funds?
Put simply, "alternative investment funds" (AIF) covers a wide range of funds, none of which are covered by the Directive on Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) [1] . It is estimated that in 2009 AIF managers were responsible for over €1,000 billion in assets.
The best-known AIFs are hedge funds and private equity funds, but others include real estate funds, commodity funds, industrial funds and infrastructure funds.
Most AIFs are not schemes sold directly to small investors. Instead, investors in these funds tend to be institutions such as pension funds, or very wealthy individuals or families. However, their impact on the real economy and the man in the street may still be very tangible as is shown by the example of pension funds.
[1] A collective investment scheme is a way of investing money with others to participate in a wider range of investments than is feasible for most individual investors, and to share the costs and benefits of doing so.
EU Project Crawls the Web for Hidden Financial Expertise
Boerse Stuttgart is member of consortium for the EU project FIRST
November 8, 2010--The new research project FIRST, co-funded by the European Union, aims to extract relevant financial information from the vast amounts of unstructured data present in the World Wide Web – in real-time that is. Its goal is to use methods of artificial intelligence to support financial decision making. FIRST will, in a nutshell, harness the knowledge of the internet to support financial decision makers.
The FIRST project started in October 2010 and will be conducted over the course of three years. Co?funded by the European Union’s “Information and Communication Technologies” Theme of the Seventh Framework Programme, the project has an overall budget of 4.574 million Euros. The FIRST consortium consists of 8 European partners from Germany, Italy, Slovenia, and Spain. Boerse Stuttgart is a member of the consortium.
ETF investors could distort metal prices, FSA warned
November 8, 2010--Plans to allow investors to easily own industrial metals like copper and aluminium are being scrutinised by the UK regulator, the Financial Services Authority.
The FSA has received a complaint about yet-to-be launched exchange traded funds (ETFs) that would own industrial metals, the regulator confirmed.
Investors already have access to physical metals like gold through ETFs, but the new product would give them access to non-precious metals.
ECB forced to act as crisis fears rise
November 8, 2010--The European Central Bank has been forced to intervene in government bond markets for the first time in almost a month, as financial markets fret that the escalating eurozone crisis is moving into a new and more dangerous phase.
The ECB said it spent €711m ($991m) buying government debt last week, reactivating an emergency programme that had lain dormant in the previous three weeks.
Eurozone joins onslaught against US Fed, weak dollar
November 8, 2010--- Europe added its voice Monday to a growing chorus of criticism of the US Federal Reserve's decision to print billions of new dollars to shore up the nation's fragile economy.
In an unusually sharp rebuke of US monetary policy, delivered on the eve of the much-awaited G20 summit, Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the group of eurozone finance ministers, said the dollar was undervalued and the Fed stimulus threatened "risks" for the world at large.
"The dollar in relation to the euro is not at the level it should be," Juncker said at a hearing before a European parliamentary committee.
Juncker urges caution on banks' role in rescue fund
November 8, 2010--The head of the eurozone finance ministers voiced scepticism Monday over a proposal backed by France and Germany to make banks absorb losses in any future rescue of a country in trouble.
"I would not want us to chase investors out of the eurozone and so I hope for a wise approach," Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg, told a European parliament committee.
EU leaders argued at a two-day summit last month over the role of the private sector in assuming losses under a future permanent fund aimed at preventing a new debt crisis in the single currency area.
Green and ethical themed funds recover after poor year of inflows
November 8, 2010--Green themed and norms-based European RI retail funds reversed a largely disappointing year so far for asset inflows with sales of €212.9m during August, according to the latest available figures compiled for Responsible Investor by Lipper FMI, the investment data group. The fund class, labelled by Lipper FMI as ‘RI Extended’, includes those with multiple ethical exclusions, those following a norms-based strategy and themed climate change and microfinance funds. The RI Extended asset sector had mostly recorded outflows for previous months this year.
The best seller during August was that of French fund manager, Ofivalmo, whose cash fund, OFI Trésor ISR, pulled in €174.4m. Second biggest grosser was Swedish fund manager Carnegie’s Luxembourg-domiciled, Carnegie Fund – Worldwide Ethical, with €123.7m. Third was Austria’s Sparkassen Eurobond fund, Espa Bond Euro-Mundelrent, which increased assets by €10.6m. The largest fund in the RI Extended sector is Pictet’s Water fund with assets of €2.3bn.
