Global ETF News Older than One Year
Pensions reforms have slowed in OECD countries but need to continue
December 5, 2017--Further reforms are needed across OECD countries to mitigate the impact of population ageing, increasing inequality among the elderly and the changing nature of work, according to a new OECD report.
Pensions at a Glance 2017 says that public spending on pensions for the OECD as a whole has risen by about 1.5% of GDP since 2000. However, the pace of spending growth is projected to slow substantially.
At the same time, recent reforms will lower the incomes of many future pensioners. People will live longer and to ensure a decent pension would have to postpone the age of retirement.
Source: OECD
ETF providers better bet than products they sell
December 5, 2017--BlackRock, State Street and Invesco have all outperformed the market.
Vast amounts of energy has been spent debating the merits of active stock picking versus low-cost tracker funds. The big news is that both sides have won, although possibly not quite in the way their advocates had envisaged.
Source: FT.com
World Gold Council-Market update: Technology-a brighter outlook?
December 5, 2017--Changes are afoot in the technology sector. Smartphones are becoming increasingly powerful, electric and self-driving vehicles could revolutionise the automotive industry, and emerging nanotechnology could transform solar energy. All of this could have a positive impact on gold demand.
It may often go unnoticed, but gold is firmly embedded in everyday life. From smartphones to medical diagnostics, people rely on it day in, day out. The volume of gold used in technology, however, has dwindled in recent years, primarily because of thrifting and substitution in the electronics sector.
Source: World Gold Council (WGC)
ETF Securities Weekly Flows Analysis-Record inflows into Robotics ETPs
December 4, 2017--Robotics-related ETPs saw inflows of US$51mn last week, the largest weekly inflow on record
US dollar long positions have seen outflows of US$40mn over the last two months
Agricultural ETPs saw outflows of US$40mn last week, focused on wheat and corn
Robotics-related ETPs saw inflows of US$ 51mn last week, the largest weekly inflow on record, bringing assets under management to over US$1bn for the first time. This follows a successful earnings season, and now that 92% have reported, we have seen earnings and sales break their 2015 highs after a period of weakness. From a quarter-on-quarter perspective the 3D printing sub-sector has been weak but this impact has been minimal with overall earnings having grown 17.7%, beating expectations by 12%. Valuations have remained static at 29x P/E, in-line with its long-term average relative to the MSCI World Tech sector.
Source: etfsecurities.com
Morgan Stanley Undercuts Rivals With Robo
December 4, 2017-The wirehouse launches Access Investing service with a fee of 0.35% per year and a $5,000 account minimum
Targeting younger investors, Morgan Stanley has launched its online platform, Access Investing, with an annual fee below those of its wirehouse rivals.
At 0.35% of assets under management per year, the program fee comes in below the Merrill Edge Guided Investing robo service, which charges 0.45%, and Wells Fargo's Intuitive Investor offering, which has a 0.50% fee.
Source: thinkadvisor.com
BetaShares-Gift that keeps on giving
December 3, 2017--Week in Review
Not even another North Korean missile could hurt markets last week, with Wall Street instead buoyed by the prospect of the US tax the tax cut. The Senate's final vote came after the market's close-so will likely be (yet another) positive tax story for markets on Monday.
Indeed, the slow moving tax cut saga is the "gift that keeps on giving" since there are many small hurdles that need to be overcome before the tax cut becomes a reality-with clearance of each hurdle seemingly a cause for celebration in its own right.
Source: betashares.com.au
December 2017 BIS Quarterly Review: Paradoxical tightening echoes bond market "conundrum"
December 3, 2017--Markets shrugged off moves by some major central banks to wind back stimulus over the last quarter: global financial conditions paradoxically eased further amid heightened concerns about overvalued asset prices.
Continued low bond yields and low volatility, particularly in the United States, are reminiscent of the bond market "conundrum" referred to by former US Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan in 2005, when market yields remained low despite Fed rate hikes.
Easier US financial conditions coincided with a decline in the term premia components of yields, or the extra return investors seek for holding a longer-term bond rather than shorter ones. For asset pricing, there are lingering uncertainties about how precisely this compression works over time, or how yields would react once central bank policies normalise.
Source: visualcapitalist.com
IMF Working paper-Incorporating Macro-Financial Linkages into Forecasts Using Financial Conditions Indices: The Case of France
December 1, 2017--Summary:
How can information on financial conditions be used to better understand macroeconomic developments and improve macroeconomic projections? We investigate this question for France by constructing country-specific financial conditions indices (FCIs) that are tailored to movements in GDP, investment, private consumption and exports respectively.
We rely on a VAR approach to estimate the weights of the financial components of each FCI, including equity market returns (which turn out having a relatively strong weight across all FCIs), private sector risk premiums, long-term interest rates, and banks' credit standards. We find that the tailored FCIs are useful as leading indicators of GDP, investment, and exports, and as a contemporaneous indicator of private consumption. Credit volumes turn out to be lagging indicators of growth. The indices inform us on macro-financial linkages in France and are used to improve the accuracy of quarterly forecasting models and high-frequency "nowcast" models. We show that FCI-augmented models could have significantly improved forecasts during and after the global financial crisis.
Source: IMF
