Global ETF News Older than One Year
ETF Securities-Precious Metals Weekly-Platinum and Palladium Reach New 2014 Highs on Constrained Supplies
May 27, 2014--PGMs steal the spotlight. Platinum and palladium reached new 2014 highs while gold and
silver remained within increasingly constrained ranges. Platinum and palladium added
another 1.3% and 1.5% on the week for year-to-date gains of 9.3% and 15.6% respectively
supported by ongoing strikes in South Africa and by the Ukrainian crisis.
The platinum and palladium London fix highs last week were US $1,492/oz. and $859.5/oz. South African strikes continue to constrain PGM supplies. Despite the three largest miners in South Africa using the Labour Court to mediate the wage dispute with the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), Impala’s CEO conceded that the strike may not end soon. The strike now enters into its 18th week, and has taken an approximate 890k oz. of platinum and 655 oz. of palladium out of production on our estimates. Even after the pay dispute in South Africa is resolved there will be a lag before production can be ramped up to full capacity, prolonging the delay in getting supply to the market. It is clear that sources of secondary supply, like scrap, are unable to catch up with primary production losses, keeping the market very tight.
Source: ETF Securities
ERI Scientific Beta unveils multi-factor smart beta indices
May 27, 2014--ERI Scientific Beta, the smart beta indexing initiative spun out off EDHEC-Risk Institute, a Paris-headquartered financial research centre, has announced the launch of the SciBeta Multi-Beta Multi-Strategy Indices.
The indices endeavour to address two potential limitations of market capitalization-weighted indices, namely ill-suited exposures to systematic risk factors and excessive concentration in a small number of stocks.
Source: etfstrategy.co.uk
ERI Scientific Beta launches multi-beta multi-strategy indices
May 27, 2014--ERI Scientific Beta has announced the launch of its Multi-Beta Multi-Strategy (MBMS) indices, which are now available on their platform.
Scientific Beta Multi-Beta Multi-Strategy indices address the two main limitations of cap-weighted indices, namely ill-suited exposures to systematic risk factors and excessive concentration in a small number of stocks.
Source: Financial Investor
MTS spans Atlantic with ETF initiative
May 26, 2014--London Stock Exchange Group's European electronic fixed income trading platform is bringing an exchange-traded fund initiative across the Atlantic.
MTS Group has been seeking to grow its presence in the US since late last year and this month completed its acquisition of US electronic trading platform Bonds.com.
Source: Financial News
'Closet indexers' face legal action from investors
May 25, 2014--Investors in the US and Europe are considering taking legal action against fund groups that have sold expensive active funds that do little more than track market performance.
The funds, known as "closet indexers", have drawn criticism from academics and passive fund providers for misleading investors into paying higher fees than they would have done in an index fund.
Source: FT.com
State securities officials issue warning about Bitcoin, digital currencies
May 23, 2014--The state's watchdog agency to protect investors has issued a warning Friday about the risks of investing in digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, Ripple or Litecoin.
The warning from the Maine Office of Securities cautions that virtual currencies are subject to minimal regulation, are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and protection of that currency can depend on the strength of a person,s computer security systems and those of third-party "e-wallet" service providers.
Source: Insurancenewsnet.com
DECPG Weekly Economic Brief
May 23, 2014--Disappointing first quarter GDP growth in the U.S., Euro Area and China contrasted with soaring activity in Japan and a broadly stable momentum in the rest of developing countries. Additional policy accommodation by the European Central Bank (ECB) could have large
spillover effects for developing countries through trade, capital flow and foreign exchange channels. Metal prices remain soft, but Nickel
gained more than 45 percent in value since the start of 2014 due to a mineral export ban in Indonesia.
GDP growth estimates for the first quarter have so far been mixed, often due to idiosyncratic or temporary factors. In high income countries, exceptionally harsh weather conditions in the U.S. hurt investment and exports, leading to stagnating activity, while disappointing data in Italy, France (partly due to a VAT hike) and the Netherlands (driven by a sharp contraction in gas production) capped euro area growth to an unchanged 0.8 percent (annualized q-o-q). The conflict over Crimea and Eastern Ukraine also provoked a sharp decline in Russian and Ukrainian GDP, down 4 and 12 percent respectively. In contrast, growth doubled in Germany to 3.2 percent, more than tripled in Spain to 2.4 percent and reached a breathtaking 5.9 percent in Japan, as durable consumption soared in advance of a sales tax hike in April.
In China, an early Lunar New Year holiday contributed to a sluggish 5.8 percent growth performance in Q1 but recent data confirmed the slowdown, prompting authorities to ramp up infrastructure spending and extend tax breaks to SMEs. In the rest of East Asia, activity contracted in Thailand due to political unrest and slowed in Malaysia and Indonesia, where policy tightening and a mineral export ban cooled activity. GDP growth improved modestly in Mexico to 1.2 percent, while estimates based on industrial production and survey data point to recovering activity in Columbia, Argentina, India, Turkey and weak but stable growth in Brazil.
Source: World Bank
Stoxx Q2/2014 Quarterly Review
STOXX CHANGES COMPOSITION OF BENCHMARK INDICES
Results of the second regular quarterly review to be effective on June 23, 2014
May 27, 2014--STOXX Limited, the market-moving provider of innovative, tradable and global index concepts, today announced the new composition of the STOXX Benchmark and their sub-and sector indices, among them the STOXX Europe 600 Index, STOXX North America 600 Index and STOXX Asia/Pacific 600 Index.
Effective as of the open of European markets on June 23, 2014, the following stocks will be added to and deleted from the STOXX Europe 600 Index and its respective size and sector indices:
Source: STOXX
First Bridge-Global ETF Sponsor Market Share
May 22, 2014--The global ETP industry ended April 2014 with assets of $2.5T. The growth in the space over the last several years has continued to attract new entrants as well as product launches from existing players.
There are now a little over 225 ETF sponsors globally. The table below shows the global market share numbers (as of end April 2014) for the top 15 ETF sponsors. The data is sourced from the First Bridge ETF database that includes all globally listed ETPs.
Source: First Bridge
IMD releases its 2014 World Competitiveness Yearbook Ranking
The US leads, Europe recovers, and big emerging markets struggle
A country's image abroad can also influence future competitiveness
May 22, 2014--IMD, a top-ranked global business school based in Switzerland, today announced its annual world competitiveness ranking. As part of its ranking of 60 economies for 2014, the IMD World Competitiveness Center also looks at perceptions of each country as a place to do business.
"The overall competitiveness story for 2014 is one of continued success in the US, partial recovery in Europe, and struggles for some large emerging markets," said Professor Arturo Bris, Director of the IMD World Competitiveness Center. "There is no single recipe for a country to climb the competitiveness rankings, and much depends on the local context."
Highlights of the 2014 ranking
The US retains the No. 1 spot in 2014, reflecting the resilience of its economy, better employment numbers, and its dominance in technology and infrastructure.
There are no big changes among the top ten. Small economies such as Switzerland (2), Singapore (3) and Hong Kong (4) continue to prosper thanks to exports, business efficiency and innovation.
view the World Competitiveness Ranking 2014
Source: IMD World Competitiveness Center
