Global ETF News Older than One Year
Pendulum swings in favour of equities
February 10, 2012--Investment managers are moving more money into shares, in response to improving market sentiment towards Europe and the US. But opinions still differ over where, and how long, to maintain these equity holdings.
In the past week, several UK firms have announced new, or “overweight” positions in equity markets, having shifted funds out of bonds, cash and other lower-risk asset classes.
Source: FT.com
IMF Working Paper-Debt, Taxes, and Banks
February 10, 2012-Summary
Understanding the impact of the asymmetric tax treatment of debt and equity on the capital structures of financial institutions is critical to shaping and assessing responses to the problem of excessive leverage that underlay the 2009 financial crisis - but there is no empirical evidence to draw on.
Guided by a simple model of banks‘ financing decisions in the presence of both regulatory constraints and tax asymmetries, this paper explores the impact of corporate tax bias on bank leverage, the use of hybrid instruments and regulatory capital ratios for a panel of over 14,000 commercial banks in 82 countries over nine years. On average, the sensitivity of banks‘ debt choices proves very similar to that of non-financial firms, consistent with rough offsetting of two opposing effects suggested by the theory. As the model predicts, somewhat counter-intuitively, the impact of tax on hybrids is generally weak or insignificant. Responsiveness to taxation varies significantly across banks, however: those holding smaller equity buffers, and larger banks, are noticeably less sensitive to tax.
view IMF Working paper-Debt, Taxes, and Banks
Source: IMF
Global ETF Inflows Enjoy Record January
February 10, 2012--The global exchange-traded fund market saw its best January on record as investors put their money back into the ETF market in a bid to take advantage of the so-called 'January effect', analysts said.
Data from fund manager Blackrock showed that January ETF inflows surged to a new record reaching $34.1 billion, up 116% from $15.8 billion in December and a rise of 144% from January 2011. The Blackrock data covers both retail and institutional inflows.
Gordon Rose, ETF analyst at Morningstar, said: "The so-called 'January effect' describes the phenomenon when the first month of the year usually has better returns and this could have driven some money back into the market."
Source: Wall Street Journal
BlackRock New Report New Report: ETP Landscape Industry Highlights, January 2012
February 10, 2012--According to the latest 'ETP Landscape' report from the BlackRock Investment Institute, January global net asset flows into fixed income Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) set a new monthly record, attracting $9.1 billion in net new assets.
This helped propel the ETP industry to its best January ever with $34.1 billion in net new assets and a total of $1.651 trillion in Assets Under Management (AUM).
Looking to the broader ETP industry, BlackRock's January ETP Landscape report also found:
ETP industry flows were up 116% versus December 2011 and up 144% versus January 2011, which was previously the best January on record. ETP AUM as of January 2012 is up 8.3% from 2011 year-end AUM.
Equity ETP flows rose to $22.6 billion, a level not seen since October 2011.
Emerging markets equity ETPs captured $6.6 billion in net new assets in January, reversing the trend from the latter half of 2011 when four of the last six months had experienced net redemptions.
visit https://www.blackrockinternational.com for more info
Source: BlackRock
Thomson Reuters Global Equities Monthly Market Share Data Reports-January 2011
February 10, 2012--Trading is fragmenting between exchanges and competing venues. But by how much and which venues? Find out in the summarised monthly reports.
Source: Thomson Reuters
NYSE Euronext makes growth plans now merger axed
February 10, 2012--NYSE Euronext (NYX.N) outlined bold plans on Friday to grow its business through investment in clearing and technology services after regulators nixed the sale of the U.S. exchange to Deutsche Boerse.
Duncan Niederauer, the chief executive of NYSE, also said mergers and acquisitions were not out of the question after a $7.4 billion takeover by the German exchange was scuppered last week, adding he was "very interested" in European clearing house LCH.Clearnet.
Source: Reuters
EU's Barnier expresses concern about Volcker rule
Barnier questions why rule only exempts U.S. govt debt
Other countries have raised similar concerns
Volcker says these concerns are overblown
February 9, 2012--Michel Barnier, the European commissioner in charge of financial regulation, wrote U.S. regulators earlier this week raising concerns about the impact that a ban on most proprietary trading by banks could have on financial markets outside the United States.
Barnier said that a proposed U.S. rule implementing the ban applies too broadly to foreign banks and markets and should instead focus only on trading activities that occur in the United States.
Source: Reuters
ETFS Research Update - Gold: New Year, New Record?
February 9, 2012--The gold spot price saw its 11th consecutive annual increase in 2011, its longest unbroken rise since its post-Bretton Woods free-float in the early 1970s.
The gold price also set a record by rising above US$1,920/oz last year. Despite the strong performance, the gold spot price ended 2011 below US$1600/oz as a result of exceptionally volatile trade, with prices dropping through their 200 day moving average trend line for the first time since the 2008 credit crisis. Gold futures net long speculative positioning hit its lowest level in over 2 years at the end of 2011. With gold having seen a more than 10% decline since its highs last year, some investors are questioning whether the best is now behind us. In this note we examine the key drivers of the gold price, recent events and likely scenarios in 2012.
Recent Gold Price Trends
Futures net long positioning near two year low
Gold price back up above its 200 day moving average
Central bank buying highest since 1970s
visit www.etfsecurities.com for more info.
Source: ETF Securities
Eurex to introduce new trading system in Q4 2012
Phased migration approach/ Customers to benefit from minimized latency, maximized throughput and greater flexibility
February 9, 2012---Eurex announced today its plan to launch a completely new trading system. Subject to the required legal approvals, first roll-out is currently scheduled for December 2012, followed by a migration phase, where products will be moved in a stepwise approach from the current to the new trading system.
It will be developed internally and based on Deutsche Börse Group’s proprietary global trading architecture, which is already in use at the International Securities Exchange (ISE).
Participants of Eurex will benefit from state-of-the-art technology which is built on the four pillars performance, efficiency, capacity, and reliability. The new technology will meet user needs by minimizing latency, maximizing throughput and allowing for greater flexibility while maintaining high standards of reliability. With the new trading system, Eurex will cease to use the currently used MISS infrastructure and VALUES API interface.
Source: Eurex
NYSE Euronext Activity Report on ETFs - January 2012
February 8, 2012--Listings
Last month, NYSE Euronext welcomed 1 new ETF listing from Amundi IS:
ETF Symbol:AA13
Listing date:26/01/2012
ETF Trading name:Amundi ETF Eurozone Highest Rated Govt EuroMTS 1-3
Underlying index: EuroMTS Highest-Rated Gvt 1-3Y
In total, NYSE Euronext had 684 listings of 586 ETFs from 16 issuers.
Trading activity
NYSE Euronext ETF markets experienced a slow start of the year with overall trading volumes down from 2011's levels:
The average daily value traded on-book last month was €265.6 million, down 43.2% vs. January 2011. The total traded on-book value amounted to €5.8 billion, down 3.4% month-on-month.
An average of 7731 on-book trades (single counted) were executed daily last month, up 2.6% vs January 2011.
A total of €1.1 billion was exchanged in block trades in January, up 21.9% from the €930.5 million last month. Overall, block trade volume represented 9.4% of total regulated market ETF trading on NYSE Euronext.
Assets Under Management (AUM)
At the end of January 2012, the combined AUM of all ETFs listed on the NYSE Euronext European markets totaled €143.1 billion, an increase of 1.5% from the €140.8 billion at the end of January 2011.
Compared with December 2011, there was a significant increase of 12.8% in AUM.
Source: NYSE Euronext
