Global ETF News Older than One Year
May Bond Bounce Sees Record ETF Flows
June 9, 2022--There were record inflows to fixed-income ETFs in May across a range of segments as economic fears spurred a broad bond rally.
Exchange-traded funds tracking government debt lured $18.7 billion with muni products adding $6.1 billion.
Almost $7.2 billion poured into ultra-short duration funds and short duration ETFs scooped up $9.4 billion. All were new monthly records.
Funds that buy bank loans were among the losers, seeing almost $1 billion exit in the first net outflow for the group since 2020.
Source: bloomberg.com
How Replacing Coal With Renewable Energy Could Pay For Itself
June 8, 2022--The world may gain an estimated $78 trillion over coming decades by making this energy transition.
International negotiators can't agree on how to phase out coal, in part because of opposition to carbon taxes, and now even countries that had been able to abandon the fuel are reversing that progress as the war in Ukraine raises energy prices.
The most common concern about scrapping coal is that replacing it with renewable energy would be too expensive, but we show in new research that the economic benefits would far outweigh the costs.
We analyze this great carbon arbitrage, as we call it, in a recent working paper that calculates the cost of replacing coal with renewables, as well as the social benefits of this important transition.
Source: IMF.org
BIS-Blockchain scalability and the fragmentation of crypto
June 7, 2022--Key takeaways
Permissionless blockchains work by providing monetary incentives to decentralised validators. Yet the mechanism for maintaining these incentives necessarily entails congestion effects and high fees. These high fees encourage the use of alternative chains, leading to a fragmentation of the crypto landscape.
Newer blockchains have higher capacity, even if these come at the cost of greater centralisation and weaker security. Differences in the design also preclude blockchain interoperability.
Limited scalability and a lack of interoperability not only prevent network effects from taking root, but a system of parallel blockchains also adds to governance and safety risks.
view the BIS Bulletin No 56 Blockchain scalability and the fragmentation of crypto
Source: bis.org
IMF-Fintech Notes-Digital Currencies and Energy Consumption
June 7, 2022--Summary:
Whether in crypto assets or in CBDCs, design choices can make an important difference to the energy consumption of digital currencies. This paper establishes the main components and technological options that determine the energy profile of digital currencies. It draws on academic and industry estimates to compare digital currencies to each other and to existing payment systems and derives implications for the design of environmentally friendly CBDCs.
For distributed ledger technologies, the key factors affecting energy consumption are the ability to control participation and the consensus algorithm. While crypto assets like Bitcoin are wasteful in terms of resources, other designs could be more energy efficient than existing payment systems.
Source: IMF.org
Stagflation Risk Rises Amid Sharp Slowdown in Growth
June 7, 2022--War in Ukraine leading to higher inflation, tighter financial conditions
Compounding the damage from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has magnified the slowdown in the global economy, which is entering what could become a protracted period of feeble growth and elevated inflation, according to the World Bank's latest Global Economic Prospects report.
This raises the risk of stagflation, with potentially harmful consequences for middle-and low-income economies alike.
Global growth is expected to slump from 5.7 percent in 2021 to 2.9 percent in 2022-significantly lower than 4.1 percent that was anticipated in January. It is expected to hover around that pace over 2023-24, as the war in Ukraine disrupts activity, investment, and trade in the near term, pent-up demand fades, and fiscal and monetary policy accommodation is withdrawn.
Source: Worldbank.org
China's transition bonds and other environment stories you need to read this week
June 7, 2022--This weekly round-up brings you some of the key environment stories from the past seven days.
Top stories: China has unveiled low-carbon transition bonds; fewer than half of Americans support nuclear power; new committee to monitor business climate action.
China is rolling out so-called low-carbon transition bonds to help companies become greener, the country's interbank bond market regulator said on 6 June, as Beijing strives toward carbon neutrality.
Under the pilot scheme, companies in eight sectors including electric power, steelmaking, petrochemicals and civil aviation will issue bonds to fund decarbonization efforts, the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors said.
It comes after China's state planning agency unveiled a new "five-year plan" for the renewable sector on 1 June, with the aim of ensuring that its grids source about 33% of power from renewable sources by 2025, up from 28.8% in 2020.
Meanwhile, record green energy output reduced Indian dependence on coal in May, despite 23.5% growth in power demand, contributing to a rise in utilities' coal inventories, a Reuters analysis of government data showed.
Source: weforum.org
Value of US and European IPOs tumbles 90% this year
June 5, 2022--First-quarter drought extends into second quarter as Ukraine war and volatility deter companies from listing
The value of initial public offerings in the US and Europe has fallen 90 per cent this year as the Ukraine war and rising inflation and interest rates have forced businesses to shelve plans to go public.
Just 157 companies raised a total of $17.9bn in the first five months of 2022, compared with 628 that raised $192bn in the same period last year, according to data from Dealogic.
Source: ft.com
Global plastic waste set to almost triple by 2060, says OECD
June 3, 2022--The amount of plastic waste produced globally is on track to almost triple by 2060, with around half ending up in landfill and less than a fifth recycled, according to a new OECD report.
Global Plastics Outlook: Policy Scenarios to 2060 says that without radical action to curb demand, increase product lifespans and improve waste management and recyclability, plastic pollution will rise in tandem with an almost threefold increase in plastics use driven by rising populations and incomes.
The report (available as a preliminary version ahead of its full publication later this year) projects global plastics consumption rising from 460 million tonnes (Mt) in 2019 to 1,231 Mt in 2060 in the absence of bold new policies, a faster rise than most raw materials. Growth will be fastest in developing and emerging countries in Africa and Asia, although OECD countries will still produce much more plastic waste per person (238 kg per year on average) in 2060 than non-OECD countries (77 kg).
Source: OECD
IMF Working Paper-Measuring Quarterly Economic Growth from Outer Space
June 3, 2022--Summary:
This paper presents a novel framework to estimate the elasticity between nighttime lights and quarterly economic activity. The relationship is identified by accounting for varying degrees of measurement errors in nighttime light data across countries. The estimated elasticity is 1.55 for emerging markets and developing economies, ranging from 1.36 to 1.81 across country groups and robust to different model specifications.
The paper uses a light-adjusted measure of quarterly economic activity to show that higher levels of development, statistical capacity, and voice and accountability are associated with more precise national accounts data. The elasticity allows quantification of subnational economic impacts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, regions with higher levels of development and population density experienced larger declines in economic activity.
Source: IMF.org
Consumer Prices, OECD-Updated: 2 June 2022 Inflation in the OECD rises to 9.2% in April 2022 as food and services prices accelerate
June 2, 2022--June 2, 2022-- Consumer prices (CPI) in the OECD rose by 9.2% year-on-year in April 2022, compared with 8.8% in March 2022. Excluding food and energy, year-on-year inflation increased to 6.3% in April 2022, compared with 5.9% in March 2022.
Food price inflation in the OECD continued to strongly pick up, reaching 11.5% in April 2022 compared with 10.0% in March. Services prices accelerated in most OECD countries, rising by 4.4% year-on-year in April 2022 on average across 33 OECD countries, compared with 3.9% in March.
These increases in food and services prices were partly offset by a temporary deceleration in energy prices to 32.5% year-on-year in April 2022, some 1.2 percentage points lower than in March.
Price developments varied somewhat across countries. Nine OECD countries recorded double-digit inflation rates, with the highest rates experienced in Turkey and Estonia. By contrast, inflation fell in five OECD countries, including Italy, Spain and the United States.
Source: OECD
