Global ETF News Older than One Year
Agriculture: Higher prices here to stay, says OECD-FAO report
June 17, 2011--Higher food prices and volatility in commodity markets are here to stay, according to a new report by the OECD and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2011-2020 says that a good harvest in the coming months should push commodity prices down from the extreme levels seen earlier this year. However, the Outlook states that over the coming decade real prices for cereals could average as much as 20% higher and those for meats as much as 30% higher, compared to 2001-10. These projections are well below the peak price levels experienced in 2007-08 and again this year.
view the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2011-2020
Source: OECD
Maple Group Comments On Glass Lewis & Co. Report
June 17, 2011-- Maple Group Acquisition Corporation ("Maple"), a corporation whose investors comprise 13 of Canada's leading financial institutions and pension funds, today commented on the report issued on June 16, 2011 by Glass Lewis & Co., a proxy advisory firm based in San Francisco, California.
In its report, Glass Lewis called Maple's proposed transaction "strategically compelling" but recommends that TMX Group shareholders should vote for the LSE takeover, largely on the basis that "…[Glass Lewis] believe[s] the LSE-TMX merger has a greater probability of obtaining all necessary regulatory approvals."
Maple believes this conclusion, and much of the information and analysis in the Glass Lewis report, is deeply flawed. Specifically, Maple noted the following:
In reaching this conclusion, Glass Lewis does not mention, and appears to give no weight to, the extraordinary condition of the LSE offer which requires provincial securities regulators in Quebec and Ontario to abandon a key Canadian public interest protection limiting any one shareholder from owning more than 10% of TMX Group.
Glass Lewis does not mention, and appears not to have been aware of or considered, the statement made by Ontario Minister of Finance Dwight Duncan on June 9, 2011, in which Minister Duncan said,
"…the 10% ownership rule for the TMX is critically important…I encourage Industry Canada and, to the extent it becomes involved, the Competition Bureau to, where appropriate, take the decisions of the securities commissions into consideration. The commissions are conducting a public comment process and will carefully consider the views of the public in making their determination about each transaction."
Source: Maple Group Acquisition Corporation
IASB rules to hit profit reporting
June 17, 2011--Companies that follow international accounting standards will no longer be able to pad their reported profits by predicting strong returns on investments held by their pension schemes, and will not be able to “smooth” earnings by averaging investment gains and losses over several years, under new rules unveiled on Thursday.
The International Accounting Standards Board, which sets rules aimed at making it easier for investors to compare the results of companies based in different jurisdictions, said the new rules would take effect in January 2013. It first began consulting on the proposals in 2008.
Source: FT.com
TABB Research Examines Electronic Alpha Capture and its Impact on Commission Allocations
New Report Focuses on Buy Side and Sell Side Use of Alpha Capture Systems, the Impact of Systems’ Performance Metrics and Emergence of an Elite Sell-Side Service Based on Pay-for-Performance
June 18, 2011-- At a basic level, electronic alpha capture is poised to become a major work flow tool forevery portfolio manager and broker-dealer to prioritize data points and opinions, pushing the most relevant ideas to the surface.
According to TABB Group in new research, “Alpha Capture: The What, Who and How Much,” this tool can give portfolio managers the freedom to focus on their primary job – generating alpha. Equally important, alpha capture technology could impact how the buy side allocates commission dollars to its research providers.
Not only can this technology enable the highest conviction ideas to “bubble to the top,”says Adam Sussman, a TABB partner, head of global research and co-author with contributing analyst Kerry Massaro, but by tracking and monitoring industry performance, these systems can enable star sales people and broker-dealers to rise above their competition. In the not-so-distant future, the performance metrics within alpha capture systems could be used universally to determine which brokers get paid and how much.
Source: TABB Group
Extreme Bets Versus Euro Rise
June 16, 2011--Hedge funds are making bigger bets on a plunge in the euro, which sank against the dollar Wednesday on growing fears of a Greek debt default. Emboldened by deepening concerns about Europe's sovereign-debt crisis, funds are increasingly willing to wager big money on the chance the euro may sink toward parity with the dollar.
For months, Europe's common currency has swung wildly within a tight range, forcing hedge-fund traders to make relatively modest trades. When worries over Europe's sovereign-debt woes eased, the euro clambered up to $1.50. When fears resurfaced, the currency dropped toward $1.40. But in recent weeks, wrangling between European politicians and central bankers over whether Greece's private-sector creditors should accept losses as part of a new rescue plan has raised the specter of a Greek default as soon as next month. That is prompting some funds to make riskier wagers against the euro using bigger amounts of borrowed cash, observers say.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Protectionist Responses to the Crisis: Damage Observed in Product-Level Trade -IMF Working paper
June 16, 2011--Summary: This paper investigates how trade flows are being affected by new discriminatory measures implemented during the global financial crisis. We match data on behind-the-border measures (e.g., bailouts and subsidies) and border measures implemented through April 2010 to monthly HS 4-digit bilateral trade data. Our estimation strategy relies on a first-differenced gravity equation and time-varying fixed effects to disentangle the impact of new discriminatory measures.
Trade in exporter-importer pairs subject to new measures decreased by 5 to 8 percent relative to trade in the same product among pairs not subject to new measures. These product-level results imply global trade declines at the aggregate level of about 0.2 percent, or $30-35 billion a year. These aggregate figures would be higher, if one third of measures had not been excluded due to incomplete data. The paper then goes on to dissect protectionism’s trade impact by disaggregating measures by type, advanced/developing countries, regions, sectors, and time. Behind-the-border measures are found to have been more harmful than border measures at the product level. Among border measures, impacts tend to be higher for less transparent measures. Advanced countries are found to be responsible for 2/3 of the trade decline due to crisis protectionism, but their exports also absorbed 2/3 of this decline. When breaking down measures in a time dimension, we find that those taken in the first nine months after the Lehman collapse were most harmful and likely continue to constitute a drag on trade.
Source: IMF
Deutsche Börse Supervisory Board and NYSE Euronext Board of Directors approve special dividend of € 2.00 per Holdco share and purchase of remaining stake in Eurex
June 16, 2011--The Supervisory Board of Deutsche Börse AG and the Board of Directors of NYSE Euronext today announced that they have approved two resolutions previously announced on June 7, 2011:
1) To recommend to the Board of Directors of the holding company of the merged group, Alpha Beta Netherlands Holding N.V. (“Holdco”), that Holdco pay a one–time special dividend of €2.00 per Holdco share shortly after closing of the combination of Deutsche Boerse and NYSE Euronext, and;
2) To indirectly purchase the remaining 50% stake in Eurex Zurich AG from Six Group and to make Deutsche Börse AG sole owner of the derivatives market as well as Six Group a shareholder in Holdco.
Background on special dividend: Based on the share exchange ratios agreed under the business combination agreement, the intended distribution translates into a special dividend of €2.00 for every Deutsche Boerse share which is tendered in the current exchange offer (exchange ratio 1:1) and into a special dividend of €0.94 / US$ 1.37 per NYSE Euronext share (exchange ratio 0.47:1 and assuming an exchange rate of $1.4576 per euro). The total dividend amount paid out by Holdco is expected to amount to approximately €620 million / US$904 million, assuming 100 percent acceptance by Deutsche Boerse shareholders in the current exchange offer. The cash distribution, payable from Holdco’s capital reserves, is subject to certain approvals and conditions being met, including the approval of the Board of Directors of Holdco post-closing of the combination of Deutsche Boerse and NYSE Euronext.
Source: Deutsche Börse
EFETnet and DTCC Selected By Industry to Develop Commodity Derivatives Trade Repository
Collaboration Combines EFETnet’s strength in the commodities market with DTCC’s in OTC derivatives trade repositories
June 16, 2011-- EFETnet and DTCC Deriv/SERV LLC (DTCC), announced that the two at-cost, user governed industry cooperatives are collaborating with market participants in the commodities industry to establish a global Commodity Derivatives Trade Repository.
The proposed new repository, which will be domiciled in Europe and jointly owned by DTCC and EFETnet, follows EFETnet and DTCC being selected by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc.'s (ISDA) Commodities Steering Committee to work with the industry on the next stage of development for this new service.
EFETnet and DTCC’s industry non-commercial cooperative models will create a joint neutral platform where many competing organizations can come together to participate in a single non-commercial reporting solution. Such a single, non-commercial, truly transatlantic solution allows regulators globally to receive from one source most if not all of the OTC commodity derivative trade data in which they have a regulatory or supervisory interest - without each regulator having to aggregate data from multiple sources which may result in double counting or omissions, or simply in improper understanding due to variations in data formatting. It will also allow aggregate market information made available to the general public to be more complete and accurate.
Source: DTCC
Dow Jones Indexes Divests Its 50% Interest in Industry Classification Benchmark
Dow Jones Indexes to Immediately Implement
New, Proprietary Classification System for Its Own Indexes
June 16, 2011-- Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today announced it had sold to FTSE Group its 50% interest in Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB), a sector classification system.
Dow Jones Indexes said it plans to immediately implement a new proprietary classification standard, based on the ICB system, for its own indexes as well as for indexes it calculates, maintains and disseminates for clients.
Source: Dow Jones Indexes
Medium-Term Oil and Gas Markets 2011
June 16, 2011--Annual growth in oil demand could average 1.2 million barrels per day (mb/d) between now and 2016, while natural gas demand could grow by around 500 billion cubic meters – around 2.5 times Russia’s current gas exports – during the same time, according to the IEA’s Medium-Term Oil and Gas Markets 2011.
The report, launched today at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, seeks to make sense of the increased divergence in oil and gas markets by providing a comprehensive outlook for fundamentals through 2016.
“This report shows that oil’s twilight as an industrial fuel continues, and it becomes ever more concentrated in the transport and petrochemical sectors,” said International Energy Agency Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka. “Gas on the other hand continues to increase in power generation as well as industry and space heating. In terms of market structure and pricing, oil is a genuinely global commodity, while gas markets, although globalising, remain bound by some key regional constraints, not least in terms of transportation.”
For oil, the projections are based on prevailing futures prices, which form an assumption as opposed to a price forecast. The crude price assumption used in the outlook averages $103 per barrel, or around $20 more than in last year’s MTOGM. Based on this assumption, the report projects the following outcomes in oil markets:
Source: IEA
