Global ETF News Older than One Year
ETFS Precious Metals Weekly: Gold holds recent gains as debt wrangles and growth concerns dominate
June 13, 2011--Gold price continues to find support near $1530/oz as the Greek sovereign debt malaise continues and central banks underline that low interest rates are set to continue. US policymakers’ remarks suggest that monetary policy will be kept accommodative in the face of uneven and fragile growth, while their
European counterparts have ruled out further support for Greece via debt purchases by the central bank.
Silver price underperforms gold over past month as industrial activity indicators disappoint. Lower-than-expected German and UK manufacturing growth added to signs from the US that near-term activity momentum in manufacturing is slowing in developed economies, and silver’s relatively high sensitivity to the global growth cycle vs. gold is weighing on the price.
Platinum group metal (PGM) prices rebounded last week as stronger than expected China import growth offset some developed economy growth concerns. Developing economy auto-catalyst demand could once again return to the forefront of market attention once Japan-related supply bottlenecks dissipate.
The gold price continues to hover just below its recent highs as central banks signify their resolve to keep interest rates low amidst what Fed governor Ben Bernanke described as a “frustratingly slow” recovery in growth. The Bank of England also elected to keep interest rates unchanged at its interest rate meeting last week, and markets pushed out rate rise expectations to H1 2012. The one exception is in Europe, where ECB president Trichet signalled a strong probability of further monetary policy tightening despite weak growth momentum in peripheral countries, as inflation and employment in core countries continues to grow. This signalling, together with his dismissal of calls for further central bank support for Greece via bond rollovers/bond purchases, has stoked concerns for the potential of Greek government debt default.
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Source: ETFS Securities
Maple goes hostile with TMX offer
June 13, 2011-- A Canadian consortium of banks and pension funds has taken its $3.8 billion (C$3.7 billion) takeover offer directly to TMX Group shareholders, touting the proposal as the best way to keep the country's exchanges out of foreign hands.
Maple Group Acquisition Corp launched the hostile bid on Monday through a takeover circular that outlines an alternative to London Stock Exchange Group's friendly $3.5 billion bid for TMX, the operator of the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Maple's formal offer is nearly identical to a preliminary proposal unveiled nearly a month ago, except Maple now will buy up to 70 percent of TMX shares, up from 60 percent originally. But the offer price of C$48 a share in cash is the same.
Source: Reuters
Global Liquidity: Availability of Funds for Safe and Risky Assets -IMF Working paper
June 10, 2011--What is global liquidity and how does it affect an economy? The paper addresses that question by looking at liquidity from two different perspectives: global liquidity as availability of funds in safe and risky asset markets. This distinction between safe and risky asset markets is important due to market segmentation, which called for unconventional monetary policy to restore a function of risky asset markets. To analyze the effect of global liquidity,
to restore a function of risky asset markets. To analyze the effect of global liquidity, I construct proxy variables and then asses how they affect an emerging economy whose interest rate is affected by a world risk-free rate and a risk premium. Using the data from four major Latin American countries, I find that these two aspects of global liquidity have similar effects on economic performance in emerging market economies except for their effect on inflation.
view IMF Working paper-Global Liquidity: Availability of Funds for Safe and Risky Assets
Source: IMF
S&P raises gold and base metals price assumptions for 2011
Standard & Poor's has raised its metals price assumptions for 2011 and beyond, citing the increased volatility of the markets but worries about sharp risk of fall in investor demand for gold.
June 10, 2011--Standard & Poor's Thursday raised its gold price assumption from $1,100 per ounce to $1,200 per ounce for the remainder of this year.
The price assumption for 2012 was raised from $1,000 to $1,100 per ounce, while the price assumption for 2013 and beyond is now $900 per ounce, versus $900 for 2012, $700 for 2014, and $600 for 2015 previously.
In their analysis, S&P Credit Analysts Andrey Nikolaev and Mark Puccia expressed concern that currently "about half of the demand for gold comes from financial investors. The key risk remains a sharp decrease in investor demand as the uncertainty in the global economy declines."
Source: Mineweb
Commodities' inflation hedge potential waning, says Amundi
June 9, 2011--Commodities remain one of the few assets effective as an inflation hedge, but this correlation is diminishing, Amundi Asset Management has said.
The French asset manager pointed out that commodities are necessary to diversify portfolios and to protect against rising inflation.
Source: IP&E
Portfolio Investment: CPIS Data - Database Contents
June 9, 2011--Under the auspices of the IMF, a Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey (CPIS) is conducted on an annual basis.
The purpose of the CPIS is to collect information on the stock of cross-border holdings of securities-equity securities and long- and short-term debt securities-valued at market prices prevailing at end-December of the reference year,
and broken down by the economy of residence of the issuer of the securities (see Notes and Definitions). In addition to this core (i.e., required) set of data, the CPIS also encourages the reporting of supplementary information that is considered to be useful, as indicated below.
Source: IMF
The 2011 Global Retail Development Index™
June 9, 2011--This year’s GRDI reflects the dramatic changes in the global economy and their very different impact on different developing markets—some developing giants kept roaring ahead, some small jewels dodged the bullet, some succumbed to the political upheaval that economic distress brings, others “muscled through” the recession. Today, as leading international retailers are rewarded for their flexibility and long-term outlook in the face of short-term uncertainty, it is time to focus on a portfolio of countries—with different levels of risk, at different stages of maturity and with distince consumer profiles—to balance short- and long-term opportunities.
South America has jumped to the head of our index this year, based largely on countries’ continued growth through the global meltdown and lack of investment fatigue that has impacted some of the historical chart-toppers
Asia has dropped in the rankings to make room for South America, even though India and China continue to lead the way out of the global recession to global recovery
The Middle East and North Africa—although dominating headlines in 2011 with political unrest and demonstrations—still eight of the top 20 countries in the GRDI
view report-GRDI: A 10-Year Retrospective
Source: ATKearney
Markit Launches Markit iBoxx European ABS Index
June 8, 2011-- Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, today announced the launch of the Markit iBoxx European ABS index, a cash bond index designed to track the performance of the European floating-rate asset backed securities (ABS) market.
The Markit iBoxx European ABS index provides investors with a benchmark to assess returns available on European ABS assets denominated in EUR, GBP, USD, and measure the relative performance of their portfolios.
Rob Ford, ABS portfolio manager at TwentyFour Asset Management, said: “This index is good news for overall transparency in the European ABS market. It’s a great addition to Markit’s index offering, and I’m sure it will be widely used by the market.”
Stephan Flagel, managing director and head of indices at Markit, said: “We are delighted to expand the coverage of the Markit iBoxx indices to the ABS asset class. The Markit iBoxx European ABS index’s strictly defined rules and pricing model make it ideal for performance attribution and structuring of financial products.”
The Markit iBoxx European ABS index is independent, transparent and rules-based. Independent buy-side and sell-side committees provide guidance on issues such as index functions and advancements. Index levels and rules are available on www.markit.com.
Source: Markit
OPEC divided as Saudi pushes for oil increase
June 8, 2011--OPEC oil producers on Wednesday were split down the middle on whether or not to back a Saudi-led plan to increase supplies and try to cap inflated world crude prices.
Under pressure from consumer countries to contain fuel inflation, Riyadh hopes to convince the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to lift production by as much as 1.5 million barrels a day, Gulf delegates said. As ministers went into closed session, Riyadh had support from its Gulf Arab allies Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to meet rising demand in the second half of the year. But five countries -- long-time price hawks Iran and Venezuela plus Ecuador, Iraq and Angola -- say they see no need to increase output. All want to keep oil prices above $100 a barrel. Brent crude traded near $116 a barrel.
Source: Todays Zaman
Mining sector feels heat as Peru turns left
June 8, 2011--Shares in mining companies operating in Peru fell sharply on Monday after a leftwing former coup leader won a narrow victory in the country’s presidential election.
Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - Grupo Mexico, a metals mining company with operations in Peru, fell 8 per cent in New York trading. Hochschild, a silver miner, and Southern Copper Corp, tumbled 5 per cent and 11.3 per cent respectively. Shares in Xstrata, which is building one of Peru’s biggest mines, were off 0.86 per cent, while Volcan Compañía Minera, in which Glencore has a stake, fell 8 per cent.
Source: FT.com
