Global ETF News Older than One Year
ETFS Precious Metals Weekly: Gold Price Holds Near Record High As Greek Debt Default Risk Escalates
September 12, 2011--Gold speculative futures positions rise for first time since early August as spot prices hover near record highs on rising sovereign debt concerns. Markets are now pricing a nearly 100% probability of a Greek government debt default as the deadline for the release of the next tranche of bailout funds looms this week.
Intra and inter-government disagreements within the Eurozone featured prominently last week as euro-area governments struggle to meet painful fiscal cutback provisions under the weight of slowing growth and revenues. Significantly, Germany is exploring methods to ring fence its banks from any Greek debt default.
Inflation, currency debasement concerns as governments outline plans to further pump-prime economies, maintain competitive exchange rates. US President Obama unveiled a $400bn+ package to boost employment last week as Fed minutes confirmed that the US central bank is exploring options to further underwrite flagging US growth and employment. The Swiss National Bank announced plans to sell unlimited Swiss Francs to maintain a minimum EUR/CHF rate last week as the perceived safe haven currency has soared recently.
Platinum group metals prices remain resilient as supply issues help check growth worries. Mooted mining nationalization priorities in South Africa and mining indigenisation in Zimbabwe highlight the uncertain supply environment in Africa, home to over three-quarters of global platinum production and over onethird of global palladium production.
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Source: ETFS Securities
OECD composite leading indicators signal widespread slowdown in economic activity
September 12, 2011--Composite leading indicators (CLIs) for July 2011, designed to anticipate turning points in economic activity relative to trend, continue to point to a slowdown in economic activity in most OECD countries and major non-member economies. The CLI for the OECD area fell 0.5 point in July; the fourth consecutive monthly decline.
Compared to last month’s assessment, the CLIs for Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Brazil, China and India are pointing more strongly to a slowdown in economic activity.
The CLIs for the United States and Russia are now also pointing more clearly to a slowdown in economic activity than in last month’s assessment. The outlook for Japan continues to indicate a potential turning-point in economic activity.
Source: OECD
Fidessa assesses developments in internalisation
New white paper discusses the trend towards broker internalisation and the impact on execution quality, specifically under MiFID II
September 12, 2011--Fidessa group plc (LSE: FDSA), provider of high-performance trading, investment management and information solutions for the world’s financial community, has today announced the publication of a white paper exploring the trend of increasing internalisation of flow and the technology options available to take advantage of this developing paradigm. The paper focuses on the specific consequences for the European non-lit market under the forthcoming MiFID II regulation.
"The MiFID regulations have heralded a period of enormous change and so market participants of all types have needed to adopt a far more intelligent approach to trade effectively across the full spectrum of lit, dark and grey liquidity," said Ian Salmon, Head of Enterprise Business Development at Fidessa, who authored the paper. "Whilst lit interaction has matured, and to some extent standardised, MiFID II promises to turn the spotlight on the non-lit spectrum. Previously considered the domain of only the larger players, dark trading now looks set to enter the mainstream."
Key points from the white paper include:
Those firms that have been operating non-lit venues will need to rethink their approach in light of the forthcoming MiFID II regulations that will place far greater emphasis on post-trade transparency
The battle between larger brokers will intensify as they seek to aggregate each other’s dark order flow
The operation of non-lit venues will no longer be the sole domain of the big banks and brokers as technological advances and dark trading alliances will bring new participants into this market
Source: Fidessa
Institutional Traders Around The World Concerned By High Frequency Trading, Global Survey Shows
Liquidnet Finds More Than Two-Thirds Worried About HFT
Concerns Run Highest In Global Firms and in U.S. and Europe
September 12, 2011--More than two-thirds of traders at leading asset management firms around the world are concerned about the impact of high frequency trading (HFT) on the equities market, according to a survey by Liquidnet, the global institutional marketplace.
Liquidnet’s Institutional Voice Survey polled traders worldwide from Liquidnet’s community of 630 institutional asset management firms. These firms collectively manage equity assets of more than $13 trillion.
“The survey reveals that there is strong conviction among the vast majority of long-only traders that HFT is a negative for institutional investors trading in large size, adding some hard facts to what’s previously been speculation about institutional attitudes,” said Seth Merrin, founder and CEO of Liquidnet. “Investors are clearly concerned that their long-term investment styles are at odds with the speculative, nano-second profit taking approach utilized by high frequency traders.”
Source: Liquidnet
EDI and the Commodities Research Bureau Team Up to Deliver the Best Quality Commodity Pricing Data
September 12, 2011--Exchange Data International (EDI), a well established provider of Securities Corporate Actions and Reference Data, today announced a new commodity pricing service in collaboration with the Commodities Research Bureau (CRB), the world’s leading commodity and futures research, data and analysis firm since 1934.
With this partnership, EDI is now able to offer its clients comprehensive End-of-Day commodity pricing and fundamental date services covering over 1000 markets worldwide. The new commodity pricing service provides daily global Futures, Futures Options and Cash pricing data as well as commodity fundamental data covering global supply and demand, production, stocks etc…
“Since 2007 we have been providing clients with equity and bond end-of-day prices. Adding commodities to our pricing suite was the next step.” says Jonathan Bloch, CEO at EDI. “We are happy to partner with CBR, one of the biggest names in commodities data, and ensure our clients receive clean accurate historical data and timely updates.”
Source: Barchart
China says "trust" main challenge for relations with EU
September 10, 2011--The main challenge for China-EU relations lies in the lack of trust produced by Europe's "double standards", China's vice minister for foreign affairs Fu Ying said here on Saturday.
"The main challenge is the problem of trust, of suspicion of each other, of political rejection," Fu said in a a debate on EU-China relations at a conference in Slovenia's lake resort of Bled.
"For many Europeans China is politically incorrect but, at the same time, it is economically correct," Fu said, speaking in English. "I do not know how that logic works, how can an incorrect political system produce correct economic results?"
Source: EUbusiness
Egypt, Kazakhstan Exchanges To Be Added to Dow Jones FEAS Index Universe
September 9, 2011-- Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today announced that the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) and the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) will be added to the Dow Jones FEAS Index universe, effective after the close of trading on September 16, 2011.
The Dow Jones FEAS Indexes measure the performance of companies across the Euro-Asian region. There are three indexes in the family: a composite and two regional sub-indexes. With the addition of Egypt (77) and Kazakhstan (7), 84 new component stocks will be added to the index, making for a total of 472 component stocks.
The Dow Jones FEAS Composite Index includes component stocks of 16 of the 34 member states of the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges. The exchanges include Abu Dhabi (UAE), Almaty (Kazakhstan), Amman (Jordan), Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Belgrade (Serbia), Bucharest (Romania), Cairo (Egypt), Nablus (Palestine), Istanbul (Turkey), Karachi (Pakistan), Manama (Kingdom of Bahrain), Muscat (Oman), Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Skopje (Republic of Macedonia), Sofia (Bulgaria) and Zagreb (Croatia).
Source: Dow Jones Indexes
ETF Securities surpasses US$30 billion in assets under management
Compounded annual growth rate of 53% in AUM over 3 years
Most traded commodity ETPs in Europe (56% of market share)
ETFS Physical Gold most traded commodity ETP in Europe
September 9, 2011--ETF Securities, pioneers in specialist exchange-traded products (ETPs), has seen its assets under management (AUM) surpass the US$30 billion mark.
Over the past 12 months, ETF Securities’ AUM have increased by 52% as investors seek the safe-haven status of gold against a backdrop of economic uncertainty and financial market volatility.
Thematic ETFs and currency ETCs have also seen strong growth recently. Together they contributed around 25% of the company's total AUM growth in the first half of 2011, up considerably from 5% in the first half of 2010.
Commenting, Mark Weeks, Managing Director, ETF Securities, said:
'Not only is our US$30bn AUM a milestone for the company, but it's also telling of the changing environment in the way investors are using commodities to form their portfolios. In recent years, it has become increasingly important to consider investment ideas that are different from traditional strategies and asset classes.
Source: ETF Securities
Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group, Pangang Group Steel Vanadium & Titanium, Among Five New Additions to Dow Jones China 88 Index
Focus Media Holding, Brilliance China Automotive Holdings, Air China Join Dow Jones China Offshore 50 Index
Changes Follow Regular Index Review
September 8, 2011--Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group
Co. Ltd. (600887.SH) and Pangang Group Steel Vanadium & Titanium Co. Ltd.
(000629.SZ) will be among five stocks added to the Dow Jones China 88 Index
following a regular semi-annual review, it was announced today by Dow Jones
Indexes.
The Dow Jones China 88 Index tracks the largest and most liquid 88 stocks in China's Class-A market and reflects about 39.56% of the float-adjusted market capitalization of both the Shanghai and Shenzhen Class-A markets.
Inner Mongolian Baotou Steel Union Co. Ltd. (600010.SH), China Nonferrous Metal Industry's Foreign Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd. (000758.SZ) and XCMG Construction Machinery Co. Ltd. (000425.SZ) will also be added to the index as part of its semi-annual (March and September) review.
Source: Dow Jones Indexes
BASF, Pearson, PPG Industries Added to Dow Jones Islamic Market World Index
Taiwan's HIWIN Technologies, KCC of South Korea, Australia's SAI Global Among Stocks Added to Dow Jones Islamic Market Asia/Pacific Index
Changes Follow Regular Periodic Reviews Of Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes
September 8, 2011--BASF of Germany, the U.K.'s Pearson PLC and PPG Industries Inc. of the U.S.will be added to the Dow Jones Islamic Market World Index, following a regular quarterly review, Dow Jones Indexes announced today.
A total of 130 stocks will be added to the index, while 103 will be deleted, increasing the number of components in the index to 2,618 from 2,591. Following BASF (BAS.XE), Pearson (PSON.LN) and PPG Industries (NYSE:PPG), the largest new components (by free-float market capitalization) in the index are Ingersoll-Rand Co. Ltd. of the U.S. (NYSE:IR) and The Netherlands' Akzo Nobel N.V. (AKZA.AE).
The free-float market capitalization of the reconstituted Dow Jones Islamic Market World Index increased to US$12.8 trillion from US$12.6 trillion.
Source: Dow Jones Indexes
