STOXX Monthly Index News
February 17, 2018--The latest edition of STOXX Monthly Index News brings you the following topics:
Performance: Top five STOXX Indices-Minimum Variance Portfolios cushion losses
STOXX Europe 600 Index: UK and Germany at bottom in tough month
Investment Outlook: Key developments to consider by Aureliano Gentilini, Head of Research, STOXX Ltd.
Fact of the Month: Climate change could cost 20% of global GDP
Index of the Month: STOXX Global Climate Change Leaders Index
Source: Mondovisione
Saudi Arabia and Russia agree to freeze oil output
February 16, 2016--Crude touched the lowest levels in 13 years after falling from as high as $115 a barrel in mid-2014
source: AME Info
Source reports record demand for gold ETF in January
February 16, 2016--ETF provider Source has stressed record demand for its Source Physical Gold P-ETC (SGLD) product in January.
Source said SGLD saw $300m (€268.5m) of new assets last month. Over 2015, its gold ETF recorded less than $250m (€223.8m) of inflows.
Source: Investment Europe
Source sees record demand for gold ETF in January
February 16, 2016--Source, a leading European provider of exchange-traded products, has reported record levels of demand for its physical gold ETP, the Source Physical Gold P-ETC (SGLD LN), in January.
The product attracted $300m of inflows over the month, significantly beating 2015's full year figure of $250m, and bringing total assets under management to over $2bn.
Source: etfstrategy.co.uk
Daily fund liquidity needs rethinking,, say asset managers
February 16, 2016--Buy-side firms sceptical about liquidity metrics, but see need for fundamental change
Is a liquidity rating system for asset managers a good idea? Is daily liquidity for investors necessary, when some such as pension funds invest for 10, 20, perhaps 30 years? Should gates or side-pockets, more traditionally used by hedge funds, be introduced? As regulators voice their concerns about the liquidity risks of asset managers, the industry itself has privately started to question the framework underpinning long-term investment.
Source: Risk.net
ETF Securities-Commodities weekly: European equity rout and weak USD benefits gold
February 15, 2016--Summary
Gold ETPs recorded the largest daily and weekly inflows on record, as the European equity market sell-off, led by the banking sector, triggered a 7.3% price rally for gold.
Oil ETPs recorded inflows for the ninth consecutive week, as investors remain confident that oil prices will recover in the near term.
The copper price fell again below the US$4,500/ton mark last week resulting in bargain hunting by investors, increasing exposure to long copper ETPs.
Source: ETF Securities
BlackRock's iShares eyes ETF price comparison tool
February 15, 2016--BlackRock's iShares division for Europe, the Middle East and Africa is looking into building a price comparison tool similar to Moneysupermarket.com to allow investors to compare the cost of various exchange-traded funds.
Source: Financila News
Bitcoin Roundtable Announcement Thwarts Bitcoin Classic Launch
February 13, 2016--Bitcoin Classic, the Bitcoin implementation set to double Bitcoin's 1 megabyte block size limit by a hard fork, suffered a significant setback shortly after itsofficial release this week.
A group of prominent exchanges, mining pools and other industry players organized under the "Bitcoin Roundtable" collective, stated publicly they will not switch to Bitcoin Classic for the present.
Source: bitcoinmagazine.com
IMF Working paper-What's In a Name? That Which We Call Capital Controls
February 12, 2016-- Summary: This paper investigates why controls on capital inflows have a bad name, and evoke such visceral opposition, by tracing how capital controls have been used and perceived, since the late nineteenth century.
While advanced countries often employed capital controls to tame speculative inflows during the last century, we conjecture that several factors undermined their subsequent use as prudential tools. First, it appears that inflow controls became inextricably linked with outflow controls. The latter have typically been more pervasive, more stringent, and more linked to autocratic regimes, failed macroeconomic policies, and financial crisis-inflow controls are thus damned by this "guilt by association." Second, capital account restrictions often tend to be associated with current account restrictions. As countries aspired to achieve greater trade integration, capital controls came to be viewed as incompatible with free trade. Third, as policy activism of the 1970s gave way to the free market ideology of the 1980s and 1990s, the use of capital controls, even on inflows and for prudential purposes, fell into disrepute.
view the IMF Working paper-What's In a Name? That Which We Call Capital Controls
Source: IMF
Many suspects behind murderous markets
Twelve guilty parties had a hand in the current market turmoil
February 12, 2016--In the midst of the worst global market sell-off since the great financial crisis of 2008, at least 12 suspects are being named.
The most worrying thing of all is that they all had a hand in the sell-off.
Source: FT.com