Global ETF News Older than One Year
IMF Departmental Papers/Policy Papers-Opening Up in the Caucasus and Central Asia: Policy Frameworks to Support Regional and Global Integration
June 19, 2018--Summary:
The Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) countries are at an important juncture in their economic transition. Following significant economic progress during the 2000s, recent external shocks have revealed the underlying vulnerabilities of the current growth model.
Lower commodity prices, weaker remittances, and slower growth in key trading partners reduced CCA growth, weakened external and fiscal balances, and raised public debt. the financial sector was also hit hard by large foreign exchange losses. while commodity prices have recovered somewhat since late 2014, to boost its economic potential, the region needs to find new growth drivers, diversify away from natural resources, remittances, and public spending, and generate much stronger private sector-led activity.
Source: IMF
The Eurekahedge Report-June 2018
June 19, 2018--Highlights from this month's report
Hedge funds posted their second consecutive month of gains, up 0.33% in May and 0.48% year-to-date. Performance has varied sharply with small to medium sized hedge funds delivering gains while funds managing in excess of US$500 million in assets seeing losses of 0.34% with their sub-group of billion dollar hedge funds declining 0.88% in May.
Total hedge fund assets grew by US$26.4 billion over the past five months, which compares with a growth in total AUM of US$92.9 billion over the same period last year. Investors have been selective in their allocations across strategies with long/short equities and macro hedge funds seeing stronger subscriptions year-to-date.
Assets under management for CTAs have shrunk by 7.13% in 2018 as underlying managers posted their fourth consecutive month of investor redemptions with net outflows totalling US$8.4 billion.
Source: Eurekahedge
Flow Traders releases May 2018 ETP market statistics
June 18, 2018--Flow Traders N.V. ("Flow Traders") (Euronext: FLOW), today releases the monthly ETP (Exchange Traded Products) market statistics for May 2018. This refers to general market observations only.
In May 2018, the total Global ETP Assets under Management (AuM) rose to US$ 4,986 bn from US$ 4,887 bn in April 2018 (+2% month-on-month, source: BlackRock ETP Landscape May 2018).
That translates into a total Global ETP AuM in euro terms of € 4,271 bn in May 2018 versus € 4,045 bn in April 2018, with an EUR/USD FX rate of 1.1673 (rate end May 2018).
The average VIX for the month of May 2018 reached 14.12 (versus 18.27 in April 2018), with a low of 12.53 (versus 15.25 as a low in April 2018) and a high of 17.02 (versus 23.62 in April 2018) (Source: Bloomberg).
Source: Flow Traders
ETF Securities Weekly Flows Analysis: Industrial metal basket ETP flows benefited the most as trade wars intensify
June 18, 2018--Industrial metal basket ETPs took the lion's share of inflows surging the most since December 2017.
Gold ETPs suffered outflows last week after hawkish comments by the Federal Reserve.
Bargain hunters appear to drive inflows into crude oil ETPs ahead of the OPEC meeting on June 22.
Source: ETF Securities
Investors Continue to be Net Purchasers of Bond Funds and ETFs in May
June 18, 2018--For the first month in three money market funds witnessed net inflows, taking in $59.3 billion for May (their largest monthly net inflows since November 2017). For the third month running the fixed income funds macro-group witnessed net inflows, taking in $6.0 billion.
However, for the first month in three stock & mixed-asset funds witnessed net outflows (-$7.9 billion). Authorized participants (APs, those investors who actually create and redeem ETF shares) were net purchasers of stock & mixed-asset ETFs-injecting $24.1 billion. And for the thirty-fifth consecutive month they were net purchasers of bond ETFs-injecting $6.8 billion for May.
Source: Thomson Reuters
Trust is the missing link in today's cryptocurrencies, BIS says
June 18, 2018--Cryptocurrencies' model of generating trust limits their potential to replace conventional money, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) writes in its Annual Economic Report (AER), a new title launched this year.
In a special chapter on cryptocurrencies, the BIS argues that the decentralised technology underpinning private digital tokens is no substitute for tried and trusted central banks. Today's cryptocurrencies become more cumbersome to use as the number of users increases, in contrast to conventional money, which works better the more people use it and trust it.
view the Cryptocurrencies: looking beyond the hype
Source: BIS
Bain Study: if Implemented Right, Blockchain Will Dramatically Reduce Costs for Banks
June 15, 2018--Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize transaction banking according to a study by major global management consultancy firm Bain & Company, Cointelegraph auf Deutsch reports today, June 14.
According to Bain, "transaction banking revenues tend to be less volatile than other types of banking revenues, and bankers can cross-sell products, which is critical for client loyalty." Bain concludes in its study that this particular area of banking will change substantially in the future through the use of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT), like blockchain:
Source: cointelegraph.com
DECPG Global Weekly
June 15, 2018--TAKING STOCK
U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates; consumer price inflation rose in May
U.S. government announced import tariffs on China
ECB to end quantitative easing in December 2018; Euro Area industrial output fell in April.
China's industrial production, investment, and retail sales growth slowed in May
The Argentine peso and Turkish lira continued to fall
U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates; consumer price inflation rose in May. As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) raised the target range for the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 1.75-2 percent at its June meeting-the second rate rise this year. The FOMC also signaled that it may raise interest rates two more times by the end of 2018 because of solid economic growth and rising inflation.
Source: World Bank
First Bridge Data-ETF Global Snapshot-June 2018
June 15, 2018--Monthly Global ETF Snapshot:
Highlights
Global ETF assets were $5.085T as of May 31, 2018.
As of May 31, 2018, MSCI began to include China 'A' shares in its emerging markets
index that is tracked by large ETFs like the iShares Emerging Markets ETF ('EEM').
Schwab published its annual ETF investor study, which showed that 91% of
'millennial' investors (currently aged 25-37) consider ETFs as their investment
vehicle of choice.
There were 152 new ETF listings globally in May 2018.
US small caps ('IWM'; 5.3%) significantly outperformed US large caps ('SPY'; 2.8%)
in the trailing 1-month through June 14, 2018.
In the US large cap equity space, growth outperformed other popular 'smart beta'
strategies like value and low volatility in the trailing 1-month through June 14, 2018.
Source: First Bridge Data
IMF Working Papers-A Macroeconomic Approach to the Term Premium
June 15, 2018--Summary:
In recent years, term premia have been very low and sometimes even negative. Now, with the United States economy growing above potential, inflationary pressures are on the rise.
Term premia are very sensitive to the expected future path of growth, inflation, and monetary policy, and an inflation surprise could require monetary policy to tighten faster than anticipated, inducing to a sudden decompression of term and other risk premia, thus tightening financial conditions.
This paper proposes a semi-structural dynamic term structure model augmented with macroeconomic factors to include cyclical dynamics with a focus on medium- to long-run forecasts. Our results clearly show that a macroeconomic approach is warranted: While term premium estimates are in line with those from other studies, we provide (i) plausible, stable estimates of expected long-term interest rates and (ii) forecasts of short-and long-term interest rates as well as cyclical macroeconomic variables that are stunningly close to those generated from large-scale macroeconomic models.
view the IMF Working Papers-A Macroeconomic Approach to the Term Premium
Source: IMF
