Commodities attract biggest bets since 2009
August 5, 2016--New money combined with rising prices push total commodity assets under management to $235bn.
Source: FT.com
Europe's investment banks sharply underperform US rivals
August 5, 2016--Second-quarter results continue a trend that has seen the Americans strengthen their dominance.
Source: FT.com
Infographic-How Fintech is Digitally Disrupting the Financial World
August 3, 2016--The market for fintech, or financial technology software, was one of the hottest sectors in 2015.
The time is ripe for financial innovation: new technologies are helping end users skip past gatekeepers and intermediaries to customize their use of financial products. Meanwhile, many of the same technologies are also erasing the inefficiencies of banks and other financial institutions to cut costs in ways the industry never deemed possible. Lastly, innovations such as the blockchain are changing the way banks approach their most basic mechanisms-as a result, even the most fundamental practices in banking are evolving.
Source: visualcapitalist.com
Gold near 2016 high on haven demand
August 3, 2016--Exchange traded funds' holdings of bullion at highest level since July 2013
Source: FT.com
World Gold Council-Market Update: Failed monetary policies lift gold
August 3, 2016--Gold has outperformed most asset classes
Analysts are scrambling to increase their gold price forecasts, as the gold price continues to rise, outperforming all major asset classes.
A weak Japanese bond auction on August 2nd unnerved markets, pushing the gold price up 29% for the year in US dollar terms.
Source: World Gold Council
STOXX-Pulse Online-Thematic Investing: Capturing the Big Changes
August 3, 2016--Thematic investing is a relatively new development in modern portfolio management. It has gained momentum in recent years in line with the disruptive power of innovation and emerging macroeconomic trends that are shaping the world at a pace augmented by the mass economy, technology and globalization.
The identification of megatrends that may significantly outgrow the standard economic and business cycles is carving a place and setting new approaches in asset management, as investors seek superior returns. Thematic investing aims to capture those future trends at the earliest possible stage of development, and build a portfolio of securities and assets that can benefit the most from those success stories of the next few years.
Source: STOXX
State Street To Shutter 12 ETFs
August 3, 2016--State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), the third-largest U.S. issuer of exchange-traded funds, said it is closing 12 of its ETFs.
Eight of the ETFs SSgA will close are international funds, while three are US-focused fixed income ETFs. The remaining one is the SPDR SSGA Risk Aware ETF (SSgA Active ETF Trust (NYSE: RORO)), which debuted nearly two years ago and has just $2 million in assets under management.
Source: CNN
Assets invested in Smart Beta ETFs/ETPs listed globally reached a new record high of 429 billion US dollars at the end of June 2016
August 3, 2016--ETFGI, the leading independent research and consultancy firm on trends in the global ETF/ETP ecosystem, today reported assets invested in smart beta ETFs/ETPs listed in globally reached a new record high US$429 billion at the end of June 2016, according to data from ETFGI's June 2016 global smart beta ETF and ETP industry insights report.
Record levels of assets were also reached at the end of June for smart beta ETFs/ETPs listed in the United States at US$390.20 Bn, Canada with US$9.44 Bn, Europe with US$ 26.70 Bn, and in Japan with US$832 Mn.
Source: ETFGI
WisdomTree-Back In Vogue: Why A 'Total China' Approach With Quality Tilt Is The Way Forward
August 3, 2016--Chinese equities should be back on investors' radar screens. Why now? Put simply, the country provides a deep value proposition especially when considering the 'Total China' approach
Up until now, investors only had fragments of the story-onshore or offshore. But as the second largest economy, China presents a world of opportunity.
In a nutshell, a 'Total China' approach to index investing will:
avoid heavily indebted bureaucratic companies, by reducing the exposure to state-owned enterprises (SOEs)
embrace new economy sectors of China; these being predominantly IT and consumer stocks that deliver higher return on investments
Source: WisdomTree
Bitcoin Plunges, Rebounds After Hackers Steal $65 Million
August 2, 2016--Hong Kong-based Bitfinex halts trading, deposits, withdrawals
Digital currency still down more than 13 percent this week
Bitcoin plunged, then erased losses Wednesday as one of the largest exchanges halted trading because hackers stole about $65 million of the digital currency.
Source: Bloomberg