Global ETF News Older than One Year
CME and ICE warn on plan to force open European clearing houses
January 27, 2014--The heads of the world's two largest exchange operators by market value have warned against proposals to force open Europe's clearing houses,arguing policy makers could undermine the stability of global markets.
Phupinder Gill, chief executive of CME Group, and Jeff Sprecher, his counterpart at IntercontinentalExchange, hit out at European plans to require all derivatives platforms to connect to their rivals venues' and process investors' trades.
Source: FT.com
IMF Working Paper-Financial Soundness Indicators and the Characteristics of Financial Cycles
January 27, 2014--Summary: Better "financial soundness" of banks could help mitigate the volatility of financial cycles by reducing banks' risk exposure. But trying to improve financial soundness in the midst of a downturn can do the opposite-further aggravating the contraction of credit.
Consistent with this notion, the paper found that better initial scores in certain financial soundness indicators (FSIs) are associated with milder and shorter downturns; and improving FSIs during a downturn worsens the shrinkage of credit and amplifies the cycle. In this contex, our results suggest that policy makers should be mindful about the timing of regulating changes in banks' FSIs.
view IMF Working Paper-Financial Soundness Indicators and the Characteristics of Financial Cycles
Source: IMF
Jack Lew and Jamie Dimon warn of Bitcoin dangers
January 24, 2014--Bitcoin has been tossed into the virtual gutter at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, as top US financial leaders warned the vitrual currency could be used to fund terrorism and predicted that regulation would put it out of business.
Jack Lew, US Treasury secretary, said: "From the government's point of view, we have to make sure it does not become an avenue to funding illegal activities or to funding activities that have malign purposes like terrorist activities."
Source: FT.com
IMF Working paper-Global Liquidity through the Lens of Monetary Aggregates
January 24, 2014-- Summary: This paper examines how the financial activities of non-financial corporates (NFCs) in international markets potentially affects domestic monetary aggregates and financial conditions. Monetary aggregates reflect, in part, the activities of NFCs, who channel capital market financing into the domestic banking system, thereby influencing funding conditions and credit availability.
Periods of capital inflows are also those when the domestic currency is appreciating, and such periods of rapid exchange rate appreciation coincide with increases in the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves, increasing the stock of narrow money. The paper examines economic significance of cross-country panel data on monetary aggregates and other measures of non-core bank liabilities. Non-core liabilities that reflect the activities of NFCs reflect broad credit conditions and predict global trade and growth.
view the IMF Working paper-Global Liquidity through the Lens of Monetary Aggregates
Source: IMF
Circular Economy Can Generate US$ 1 Trillion Annually by 2025
New report finds that a shift towards a circular economy can generate US$ 500 million in material cost savings, 100,000 new jobs and prevent 100 million tonnes of waste globally within five years
Project Mainstream initiative aims to accelerate cross-sector engagement towards a circular economy
January 24, 2014--Over US$1 trillion a year could be generated by 2025 for the global economy and 100,000 new jobs created within the next five years if companies focused on encouraging the build-up of "circular" supply chains to increase the rate of recycling, reuse and remanufacture.
This would maximize the value of materials when products approach the end of their use, according to a new report released today by the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation at the Annual Meeting 2014 in Davos.
view the Towards the Circular Economy: Accelerating the scale-up across global supply chains
Source: WEF
SPDR Weekly Report
January 24, 2014--ECONOMIES: Home sales rise in the US. The Bank of Canada leaves its policy rate unchanged but strikes a dovish tone. Unemployment
falls in the UK. Manufacturing conditions improve in the eurozone. The Bank of Japan leaves policy unchanged. GDP growth slows in China.
MARKETS: Risk appetites erode on mixed earnings and emerging market (EM) growth anxieties. Equities fall. Government bonds are bid. CAD continues its slide. EM currencies tumble. Oil and gold rise.
NEXT WEEK PREVIEWED
SPOTLIGHT: The Fed will likely "taper" another $10 billion. GDP growth likely slowed in the US. GDP should rise solidly in the UK. Inflation likely remained uncomfortably low for the eurozone. Inflation in Japan continues to trend higher.
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
US
EXISTING HOME SALES rose 1.0% in December. However, this
followed substantial declines in each of the previous three
months. Consequently, the 4.87 million unit annual sales
pace posted for December remained well below the cycle high 5.39 million rate posted during the summer. Moreover,
December sales were actually down slightly from a year
earlier. Even so, for 2013 overall, home resales came it at a
seven-year high of 5.09 million. Meanwhile, the inventory of
existing structures on the market, available for sale, dropped
8.9% in December to 1.86 million, representing a lean
4.6 months of stock at the current sales pace.
Against the backdrop of relatively lean inventories, HOME PRICES continue to rise. The median sale price of an existing structure (not seasonally adjusted) was $198,000 in December, up 1.8% on the month and 9.9% from a year earlier to the highest median price for the month since 2007. Meanwhile, the Federal Housing Finance Agency seasonally–adjusted national home price index edged up 0.1% in November, the 22nd consecutive gain, lifting prices 14.5% from the March 2011 cycle trough. In November, prices rose in five census divisions, fell in three, and were unchanged in one. However, they were up from a year earlier in all nine.
For more information, including product fact sheets and related whitepapers
Source: SSgA
ETF sales restrain gold in thin trade
Sales from the SPDR gold ETF restrained the gold price from its expected rise but little more as trade in gold bullion was thin, says Julian Phillips.
January 23, 2014--New York saw gold fall to $1,237 then took it down to $1,234 in thin trade in both markets.
Ahead of the opening in London it recovered to $1,238. The dollar traded at $1.3548: €1 then. London traded up from $1,238 until the Fixing, which was set at $1,244.25 up $4.75 on Wednesday. In the euro, it Fixed at €912.876 down €3.095 reflecting a weaker dollar which stood at $1.3632: €1.
Source: Mineweb
Markit Launches Global ETF Platform
January 23, 2014--Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, today announced that it has integrated its suite of ETF products into a new web application that delivers sophisticated capabilities required for navigating the increasingly complex and global ETF universe.
Mark Schaedel, managing director and global head of equity & index data services at Markit, said: "Until now, ETF investors looking for global exposure have had blind spots due to a lack of cost effective exposure to previously inaccessible asset classes. The integration of our analytics into the new ETF platform helps customers navigate this fragmented market that spans over 5,000 global ETFs, issued by more than 200 providers and which trade across 60 exchanges using a single view with a powerful analytics tool-set layered on top".P>view more
Source: wnd.com
IMF warns more work is needed to tackle big bank risk
January 22, 2014--Big banks still pose a threat to the world financial system because there is a general assumption that governments will come to their rescue in case of trouble, an International Monetary Fund executive said on Thursday.
"It is astonishing that officials in countries are still largely ill-equipped to deal with a Lehman Brothers-style bankruptcy, where assets and liabilities are scattered across multiple jurisdictions and entities," Jose Vinals, tasked with financial oversight at the IMF, said in a blog post.
view more
Source: IMF
IMF Working paper-Effectiveness of Capital Outflow Restrictions
Specifically, it examines whether a tightening of outflow restrictions helps reduce net capital outflows. We find that such tightening is effective if it is supported by strong macroeconomic fundamentals or good institutions, or if existing restrictions are already fairly comprehensive. When none of these three conditions is fulfilled, a tightening of restrictions fails to reduce net outflows as it provokes a sizeable decline in gross inflows, mainly driven by foreign investors.
view the IMF Working paper-Effectiveness of Capital Outflow Restrictions
Source: IMF
January 22, 2014-- Summary: This paper examines the effectiveness of capital outflow restrictions in a sample of 37 emerging market economies during the period 1995-2010, using a panel vector autoregression approach with interaction terms.
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