Global ETF News Older than One Year
Morningstar's Annual Global Asset Flows Report Shows 2015 Inflows One-Third Lower than in 2014
Equity funds again top other category groups despite lower year-over-year inflows
March 22, 2016--Morningstar, Inc. (NASDAQ: MORN, a leading provider of independent investment research, today published its fourth annual Global Asset Flows Report examining worldwide 2015 mutual fund and exchange-traded product (ETP) asset flows.
At $949 billion, total flows in 2015 were notably lower than the $1.4 trillion that flowed into funds globally in 2014. The U.S. fund industry had new asset flows of $263 billion, down from $580 billion in 2014. Asia showed the strongest organic growth rate, 18.6 percent, among the regions analyzed by Morningstar.
view the Morningstar 2015 Global Asset Flows Report
Source: Morningstar
Money managers shake up ETF landscape
March 22, 2016--The booming exchange traded fund industry, in which investors can buy shares that track an underlying basket of securities, shows few signs of slowing down.
Within the industry, institutional investors play a prominent role, attracted by lower costs and flexibility of the product.
Source: FT.com
IMF Working paper-Financial Stability and Interest-Rate Policy: A Quantitative Assessment of Costs and Benefits
March 21, 2016--Summary: Should monetary policy use its short-term policy rate to stabilize the growth in household credit and housing prices with the aim of promoting financial stability?
We ask this question for the case of Canada. We find that to a first approximation, the answer is no-especially when the economy is slowing down.
Algo rules could catch commodities trades
March 20, 2016--Olam is nobody's idea of a high-frequency trading firm.
The Singapore-based agricultural commodities merchant grows almonds, processes cocoa and deals bales of cotton. But Olam worries it may soon be classed alongside the world's fastest market
Source: FT.com
Liquidity crunch elevates bond traders
March 20, 2016--There is greater integration between portfolio managers and dealing desks in the current market
Falling liquidity in fixed income markets has created a new sphere of influence at some of the world's largest investment houses: the trading desk.
Source: FT.com
Why Forests are Key to Climate, Water, Health, and Livelihoods
March 18, 2016--March 21, the International Day of Forests, is an opportunity to highlight the central role forests play in ecology and climate change, and the significant economic, social and health benefits that forests can provide.
1.3 billion people-one-fifth of the global population-depend on forests for employment, forest products, and contributions to livelihoods and incomes.
IMF Launches Debate on Future of International Monetary System
March 17, 2016--Major structural shifts are posing challenges to the global economy
Study to examine adequacy of the global safety net, how to make capital flows safer
IMF to work with others to identify—and correct-system's shortcomings
The IMF is embarking on a study to understand the challenges facing the international monetary system, identify the system’s shortcomings, and lay the basis for reform.
Source: IMF
Re-assessing the classic risk-return trade off
March 16, 2016--"If you can keep your head when all about are losing theirs, it's just possible that you haven't grasped the situation." That was how the American satirist Jean Kerr updated Rudyard Kipling's poem, and new financial research suggests she was on to something.
It also adds to the growing supply of data suggesting we should re-examine the traditional financial view that investment is about trading off risk and return, with greater risk ultimately rewarded with greater return.
view the Volatility Managed Portfolios research paper
Source: som.yale.edu
ETFs reflect market conditions rather than dictate them
March 16, 2016--Controversy over exchange traded funds centres around three key questions
As exchange traded funds have become more popular, the amount of controversy about them has grown. The current ETF debate centres around three key questions. Are there now too many ETFs? Do they contribute to market volatility?
Source: FT.com
IMF Working paper-When Do Structural Reforms Work? On the Role of the Business Cycle and Macroeconomic Policies
March 15, 2016--Summary: Structural reforms are expected to lift growth and employment, but their effects are surprisingly difficult to pin down empirically.
One reason is their potential endogeneity to the economic environment in which they are conducted. For example, the impact of a reform implemented shortly before a cyclical upswing is difficult to distinguish from the recovery itself. Similarly, macroeconomic policies conducted along a structural reform could affect the estimated impact. Exploring various options, this paper develops robust estimates of the impact of labor and product market reforms by using local projection techniques while controlling for endogeneity of reforms and other biases. The results suggest that labor and product market reforms have a lagged but positive impact on employment creation, and the positive effect remains even after controlling for the endogeneity of the decision to reform. Supportive macroeconomic policies are found to increase the effect of labor and product market reforms, consistent with the view that some structural reforms are best initiated in conjunction with supportive fiscal or monetary policy.
Source: IMF
