Global ETF News Older than One Year
Eurex: Trading statistics January 2016-Eurex Exchange: ADV 7.2 million contracts/ ISE: ADV 3.0 million contracts
February 1, 2016--In January 2016, the international derivatives markets of Eurex, part of Deutsche Börse Group, recorded an average daily volume of 10.2 million contracts (January 2015: 8.8 million).
Of those, 7.2 million were Eurex Exchange contracts (January 2015: 6.6 million), and 3.0 million contracts (January 2015: 2.2 million) were traded at the New York based International Securities Exchange (ISE). The volume traded on the spot and derivatives power markets of the European Energy Exchange (EEX) amounted to 332.4 terawatt hours. Eurex Repo recorded in all markets in January 2016 an average outstanding volume of 129.0 billion euros.
Source: Europe
IMF Working paper-Commodity Price Shocks and Financial Sector Fragility
February 1, 2016--Summary: This paper investigates the impact of commodity price shocks on financial sector fragility. Using a large sample of 71 commodity exporters among emerging and developing economies, it shows that negative shocks to commodity prices tend to weaken the financial sector, with larger shocks having more pronounced impacts.
More specifically, negative commodity price shocks are associated with higher non-performing loans, bank costs and banking crises, while they reduce bank profits, liquidity, and provisions to nonperforming loans. These adverse effects tend to occur in countries with poor quality of governance, weak fiscal space, as well as those that do not have a sovereign wealth fund, do not implement macro-prudential policies and do not have a diversified export base. These findings are robust to a battery of robustness checks.
view the IMF Working paper-Commodity Price Shocks and Financial Sector Fragility
Source: IMF
Newly Launched iSTOXX MUTB Global Quality Indices Licensed To Mitsubishi UFJ Trust And Banking Corp.
February 1, 2016--STOXX Limited, a leading provider of innovative, tradable and global index concepts, today announced the launch of the iSTOXX MUTB Global Quality Indices that capture the performance of quality companies with high profitability,low leverage and sustainable cash flows globally.
The new indices have been licensed to Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corp. (MUTB) the leading Japanese trust bank, to be used for an institutional passive fund.
"We are delighted to extend our collaboration with Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corp. by developing the iSTOXX MUTB Global Quality Indices. By that we follow the memorandum of understanding we entered last year, with the aim to create and market new smart-beta indices for the Japanese region," said Hartmut Graf, chief executive officer, STOXX Limited.
Source: Stoxx
IMF-Global Housing Watch Quarterly Update-January 2016
January 29, 2016--If we aggregate real house prices across countries and look at the big picture, we see that global house prices continue to march slowly upward.
This is what we observe in the latest update of the Global House Price Index. The index has continued to edge higher for the past sixteen quarters.
This upward trend in the Global House Price Index is consistent with the pattern we see when we look at real house price growth across countries.
Source: IMF
Infographic-Commodities: To Short, or Not to Short?
January 29, 2016--Comparing "Dogs of the Dow" inspired strategies over the last decade.
Source: visualcapitalist.com
ETF Assets Hit Record $2.2 Trillion in 2015, According to Broadridge Financial Solutions
Growth of ETFs drives increased allocation of passive products in retail distribution channels
January 28, 2016--Total exchange-traded fund (ETF) assets hit an all-time high of $2.2 trillion in 2015, driven by the continued growth in popularity of passive investment vehicles, according to quarterly data released today by Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:BR) via its Fund Distribution Intelligence.
Comparatively, total long-term mutual fund assets held by financial intermediaries decreased by $161 billion to $7.29 trillion in the full year of 2015, while ETF assets increased by $124 billion in the same period.
Source: Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc
ESMA Consultation paper-Draft Guidelines on the Market Abuse Regulation
January 28, 2016--The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has opened today a public consultation on draft guidelines clarifying the implementation of the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR). MAR strengthens the existing market abuse framework by extending its scope to new markets, platforms and trading behaviours.
view the ESMA Consultation Paper-Draft guidelines on the Market Abuse Regulation
Source: ESMA
Corruption Perceptions Index 2015: Corruption still rife but 2015 saw pockets of hope
January 27, 2016--Transparency International calls on people everywhere to speak out against corruption
2015 showed that people working together can succeed in the battle against corruption.
Although corruption is still rife globally, more countries improved their scores in the 2015 edition of Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index than declined.
Overall, two-thirds of the 168 countries on the 2015 index scored below 50, on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 100 (perceived to be very clean).
view the 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index
Source: Transparency International
Exchange traded funds (ETFs): Understanding the future opportunities and challenges
January 26, 2016-The ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) market is growing at a rapid pace. Growing far beyond their initial function of tracking large liquid indices in developed markets, ETFs now hold over $2.6 trillion of assets globally.
ETFs are no longer a niche product, and their impact will continue to be felt much more widely than imagined. As such, all financial services firms should consider developing an ETF strategy.
In this report, we have surveyed asset managers, service providers and other industry participants around the world in an effort to better understand regional developments in ETFs and use their expertise as a sounding board for our own perspectives.
view the pwc ETF 2020 Preparing for a new horizon report
Source: PwC
Foreign Direct Investment stocks at the end of 2014-The EU, a net investor in the rest of the world
Main FDI partner: by far the United States
January 26, 2016--At the end of 2014, the European Union (EU) held Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) stocks of €5 749 billion in the rest of the world (+7.6% compared with the end of 2013),
while stocks held by the rest of the world in the EU amounted to €4 583 bn (+9.6%), meaning that the EU held a net investment position of €1 166 bn vis-a-vis the rest of the world.
Source: Eurostat
