Global ETF News Older than One Year
The global order fractures as American power declines
June 14, 2011--Harold Macmillan, the prime minister who watched US power rise as the British empire crumbled, used to say that Britain would play ancient Greece to America’s Rome.
These days it looks as if Rome is declining too. The US finds it increasingly hard to drive forward its vision of international trade and economics over the objections of big emerging-market countries.
Source: FT.com
TMX Group Statement Regarding The Maple Group Offer
June 13, 2011--TMX Group Inc. acknowledges the issuance of a circular to its shareholders by Maple Group Acquisition Corporation (Maple), containing Maple's unsolicited formal offer to acquire 70% of the outstanding shares of TMX Group and soliciting proxies to vote against the proposed merger with London Stock Exchange Group plc (LSEG).
The Board of Directors of TMX Group (the Board) will fulfill its fiduciary responsibility and will review the Maple offer and circular and respond to it in a directors' circular on a timely basis. The Board will also reassess whether the Maple formal offer constitutes a superior proposal, or could reasonably be expected to result in a superior proposal. On May 20, 2011, the Board concluded that, under the terms of the merger agreement (Section 5.8) with LSEG, the Maple proposal of May 13, 2011, did not constitute a superior proposal, nor could it reasonably be expected to result in a superior proposal.
TMX Group continues to pursue efforts currently underway to secure the necessary regulatory and shareholder approvals required to complete its merger with LSEG. A vote by TMX Group shareholders has been scheduled for June 30, 2011 and the Board of Directors has unanimously recommended that shareholders vote in favour of the proposed merger.
Source: Canada NewsWire
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.
visit www.etfsecurities.com for more info
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
