Global ETF News Older than One Year
Investors Flock to Government Bonds
Concerns Rise Over Health of Portuguese Bankz
July 10, 2014--Investors piled into haven government bonds in the U.S., Germany and the U.K. on Thursday, driven by fresh signs of uneven global growth and concerns over the health of a major Portuguese bank.
The buying propped up the prices of Treasury bonds for a fourth straight session, sending the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note to the lowest level in more than a month. The yield on the 10-year German government bond fell to near a record low. When bond prices rise, their yields fall.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Bank Trading Revenue May Improve in Second Quarter
Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities Trading in U.S., Europe May Do Better Than Expected
July 10, 2014--Bank revenues from fixed income, currencies and commodities trading, or FICC, might not be as bad as some expect when the sector reports second-quarter results starting Friday, senior executives and bankers said.
An uptick in trading volumes in June has mitigated a slow start to the quarter and will help banks who are large U.S. and European fixed-income players, though it may not be enough to keep FICC revenues from declining overall for the quarter.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Netagio launches first British Bitcoin, gold & sterling exchange
Netagio exchange enables domestic and international customers to trade all three asset classes against each other on a single platform.
July 10, 2014--Netagio, the UK-based digital currency broker, has announced the launch of the first British exchange enabling retail customers and institutional investors to trade gold,
Bitcoins and GBP on a single peer-to-peer exchange platform. Customers from 114 countries can now trade each asset class against each other on the exchange.
Source: Automated Trader
Bloomberg Acquires RTS Realtime Systems
RTS delivers high-performance, multi-asset trading solutions to enhance speed and geographic reach of Bloomberg trading technologies
July 9, 2014--Bloomberg announced today that it has acquired RTS Realtime Systems, a global provider of low-latency connectivity and trading support services.
RTS provides market connectivity and trading tools for equities, futures, options, FX and fixed income trading.
Source: MarketWatch
Qatar to sell down stake in LSE
July 9, 2014--The Qatar Investment Authority is to sell down a third of its stake in the London Stock Exchange Group ahead of the bourse's $1.6bn rights issue to help purchase Frank Russell, the US index compiler.
The sovereign wealth fund has instructed Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citigroup to sell a near 5 per cent stake in an accelerated bookbuild, said two people familiar with the situation.
Source: FT.com
Brics bank set to launch next week
July 9, 2014--Leaders of the Brics nations-Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa- will launch their long-awaited development bank at a summit next week and decide whether the headquarters should be in Shanghai or New Delhi, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Wednesday.
The Brics' creation of a $100bn bank to finance infrastructure projects has been slow in coming, with disagreements over its funding, management and headquarters.
Source: FIN24
Eurex Clearing publishes White Paper on the systemic role of central counterparties
Central Counterparties (CCPs) reduce systemic risk in financial markets/ Specific recovery and resolution frameworks for Financial Market Infrastructures support the benefits of the CCP model
July 8, 2014--Central clearing significantly reduces systemic risk and their amplifying factors in financial markets. This is a key finding of the White Paper "How central counterparties strengthen the safety and integrity of financial markets" which was published today by Eurex Clearing, the CCP of Deutsche Börse Group.
Hence, the regulatory agenda to broaden the use of CCP clearing together with high regulatory requirements makes financial markets more robust and transparent and benefits the wider economy. In particular central clearing reduces risks in bilaterally negotiated products such as OTC derivatives and allows to mitigate systemic risks in these markets.
Source: Deutsche Börse
Deutsche to scrap db X-trackers name
July 8, 2014--Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management is scrapping the db X-trackers and DWS fund names as part of its efforts to develop a "global brand identity".
The firm will replace db X-trackers, the name used for its exchange traded fund business, with Deutsche x-trackers in 2015, according to a company spokesperson.
Source: FT.com
IMF Working paper-Why Complementarity Matters for Stability-Hong Kong SAR and Singapore as Asian Financial Centers
July 8, 2014-- Summary: There is much speculation regarding a "race for dominance" among financial centers in Asia, arising from the anticipated financial opening up of China. This frame of reference is, to an extent, a predilection that results from a traditional understanding of financial centers as possessing historical, geographic, and scale economy advantages.
This paper, however, suggests that there is an alternative prism through which the evolution of financial centers in Asia needs to be viewed. It underscores the importance of "complementarity" rather than "dominance" to better serve regional and global financial stability. We posit that such complementarity is vital, through network analysis of the roles of Hong Kong SAR and Singapore as the current leading financial centers in the region. This analysis suggests that a competition for dominance can result in de-stabilizing levels of interconnectivity that render the global "network" as a whole more susceptible to rapid propagation of shocks. We then examine the regulatory and policy challenges that may be encountered in furthering such complementary coexistence.
Source: IMF
Fund managers hold the potential for systemic risk
If they amplify market cycles they contribute to broad-based risk
July 8, 2014--Could fund managers pose a systemic risk? Regulators round the world started to ask the question, and answered "perhaps".
Fund managers' response was: "Cherchez la leverage." Downturns turn into crises when companies have too much leverage, and a small loss can render them incapable of paying their debts. Lehman Brothers would not have gone bankrupt if it had not had so much leverage-and its demise would not have been so damaging had it not inflicted credit losses on others
Source: FT.com
