Global ETF News Older than One Year
Easing trade tensions lift sentiment: BIS Quarterly Review
December 8, 2019--Easing trade tensions in mid-October triggered a risk-on phase in global financial markets. Equity prices rallied, reaching new highs in the United States in November. At the same time, credit spreads tightened, and yields on safe sovereign bonds edged higher. Nevertheless, the economic outlook remained tepid and inflation low, leading central banks to ease further.
The renewed risk appetite, coupled with loose financial conditions, sparked questions about the sustainability of asset valuations. Investors' compensation for bearing risk seems to hinge on the term premium; to the extent that the premium is unusually low, it may flatter valuations.
Source: BIS
DIY stock indices pose challenge to investment heavyweights
December 5, 2019--In April the German exchange group bought Axioma, a New York-based analytics company, and merged it with its existing data and index business.
The new company, Qontigo-which owns some of the biggest European equity benchmarks such as Germany's Dax -has since rolled out a "do-it-yourself" platform that allows clients to design their own indices, and outsource the maintenance.
Source: FT.com
Putting a Price on Pollution
December 5, 2019--Carbon-pricing strategies could hold the key to meeting the world's climate stabilization goals
Without major and urgent efforts to slow accumulation of carbon dioxide (CO 2) and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, future generations will inherit a much warmer planet with risks of dangerous climate events, higher sea levels, and destruction of the natural world.
The international community's response is grounded in the 2015 Paris Agreement, which has the key objective of limiting future global warming to between 1.5 and 2˚C above pre-industrial levels.
Source: IMF
Hedge fund billionaire vows to punish company directors for climate change inaction-Sir Christopher Hohn, who has donated to Extinction rebellion, steps up pressure on firms responsible for carbon emissions
December 4, 2019-A billionaire hedge fund manager and backer of Extinction Rebellion has warned he will begin taking action against companies that do not do enough to tackle the climate emergency.
Sir Christopher Hohn, founder of TCI Fund Management, which manages more than $28bn (£s;21bn) of assets, has sent letters to big companies in which it invests, including Google and Airbus.
Source: independent.co.uk
The next generation of digital currencies: in search of stability
December 2, 2019--Recent developments have re-opened the debate on the future of money. This Policy Contribution discusses two aspects: the implications of the rise of global private stablecoins, such as Facebook's Libra, and the role that public central bank digital currencies could play.
Four major developments have challenged the status quo and reopened the debate on the forms that money will take in the future: 1) use of cash as a medium of exchange has declined; 2) distributed ledger technology (DLT) has led to the emergence of thousands of digital cryptocurrencies; 3) some global tech giants are planning to provide private digital currencies to their billions of users in the form of stablecoins; and 4) in turn, public authorities are thinking about providing their own digital currencies to the general public.
Source: bruegel.org
Bond ETFs outshine equity rivals in 2019
December 2, 2019--Investors plough $191bn into passive fixed-income vehicles that track the markets.
Source: FT.com
Insurance becoming increasingly hard to get for global coal industry
December 2, 2019--The number of insurers withdrawing cover for coal projects more than doubled this year and for the first time U.S. companies have taken action, leaving Lloyd’s and Asian insurers as the "last resort" for fossil fuels, according to a new report.
The report, which rates the world's 35 biggest insurers on their actions on fossil fuels, declares that coal-the biggest single contributor to climate change-"is on the way to becoming uninsurable" as most coal projects cannot be financed, built or operated without insurance.
Source: ieefa.org
Assets held in exchange traded funds surge to record $6tn
December 1, 2019--Performance of most traditional active managers during the crisis prompted many investors to seek less volatile strategies
Global assets held by exchange traded funds have climbed to a record $6tn, doubling in size in less than four years, in a surge turbocharged by the lengthy US stock market bull run.
The sector's explosive growth has attracted heightened scrutiny by regulators who are concerned about the influence of ETFs as they spread deeper and wider into financial markets worldwide.
Source: FT.com
Countries should strengthen pension systems to adapt to changing world of work
November 27, 2019--Governments should urgently reform their pension systems to ensure that the growing share of workers in temporary or part-time employment can contribute enough during their working lives to receive an adequate income in retirement, according to a new OECD report.
Pensions at a Glance 2019 says that non-standard employment, such as self-employment, temporary or part-time work, now accounts for more than one-third of employment across OECD countries. Part-time work is three times more frequent among women than among men and self-employment is particularly common among older workers.
view the Pensions at a Glance 2019 OECD and G20 Indicators
Source: OECD
IMF-A New Climate Economy
November 26, 2019--"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." The quip, attributed to 19th-century American humorist Mark Twain, might describe the current state of play on climate change. In Twain's day, it was absurd to suppose humans could do anything about the weather.
Today, we understand that we can and we must.
The changing climate, largely wrought by humans, is bringing rising sea levels, temperature extremes, and more frequent and harsher storms. These threaten to displace lives, livelihoods, and communities, with clear economic consequences, often at a high price tag, around the world.
Source: IMF
