Global ETF News Older than One Year
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
FIA and ISDA Publish Documentation for Cleared Swaps
June 16, 2011--The Futures Industry Association and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) today announced the publication of the FIA-ISDA Cleared Derivatives Execution Agreement as a template that can be used by participants in the cleared swaps markets in negotiating execution-related agreements with counterparties to over-the-counter derivatives that are intended to be cleared.
The agreement was developed with the assistance of a committee comprised of representatives from both buy-side and sell-side firms with expertise in both futures and OTC derivatives. More than 60 organizations provided input during the development of this document.
Michael Dawley, FIA chairman and managing director, Goldman Sachs, said: “We expect that this agreement will help provide a sound foundation for the expanded use of clearing in the global OTC derivatives marketplace. We are very pleased that this industry initiative has come to fruition and we thank all the members of the working group for their contributions to the development of this important agreement.”
Stephen O’Connor, ISDA chairman and managing director, Morgan Stanley, said: “Encouraging greater use of central clearing by all market participants is one of the important ways in which ISDA works to ensure safe, efficient OTC derivatives markets. This agreement marks further progress toward that goal.”
Richard Prager, managing director and head of global trading, BlackRock, said: "The derivatives industry’s collaborative effort has resulted in a modular give-up document that meets the needs of all market participants, promotes deep, liquid and efficient market structure and supports principles of the Dodd-Frank Act."
SOurce: ISDA
Emerging Markets Remain Popular with Buy-Side Investors but Prime Brokers Hold Keys to the Kingdoms, Says TABB
New TABB Research Shows Investors Seek Sector- and Company-Based Investment Strategies over Emerging Market Groupings in Their Continued Search for Alpha
June 15, 2011-- Institutional buy-side investors see the emerging financial markets as a source of ongoing positive returns as developed markets continue to show slower growth and increased risks. But according to TABB Group in new research published today, prime brokers hold the key to the hardest-to-access markets based on their ability to provide cost-efficient access products as well as technology platforms, including direct markets access (DMA) systems and cross-region, cross-asset portfolio management tools.
Emerging-market investors are now utilizing both company- and sector-based strategies rather than macro country strategies, says Kevin McPartland, author of the new TABB report, “The Emerging Market Resurgence: Access, Risk and Reward,” leading to demand for swaps and other access products. “Swaps, participation notes and other similar access structures can offer institutional buy-side investors more well-rounded investment opportunities than exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and depository receipts (DRs). which provide less flexibility. Continued growth in these broad-based, emerging-market ETFs will come largely from retail investors.”
Source: TABB Group
May 2011 FIF Market Share and Market Dynamics Reports – Executive Summary
April 15, 2011--In May 2011, off-exchange trading accounted
for 30% of the shares traded in NMS Equity Securities.
Share volumes traded across Tape A, B, and C increased 7% monthly and decreased 35% annually to 152 billion shares.
Share volumes in NYSE-listed securities
increased 1% monthly and decreased 39%
annually to 80 billion shares.
NASDAQ-listed securities traded over
exchange increased 11% monthly and
decreased 21% annually to 43 billion shares.view more
Source: Financial Information Forum (FIF)
The OECD composite leading indicators signal mild loss of growth momentum
June 15, 2011--Composite leading indicators (CLIs) designed to anticipate turning points in economic activity relative to trend, point to a mild loss of growth momentum in most major economies for April 2011.
A notable exception is the United States which continues expanding relative to trend, albeit more moderately than in last month’s assessment.
The CLIs point to a stable pace of expansion in Germany and the United Kingdom, clear signs of slowdown in the pace of activity in France and Italy, and a likely moderation of growth towards its long-term trend in Canada.
The CLI for China points to a possible moderation in economic activity. Other CLIs indicate a slowdown in Brazil and India and the first sign of a loss of growth momentum in Russia.
Because of the exceptional circumstances the country is facing, it is not possible to provide reliable estimates of the CLI for Japan at this stage.
The OECD Development Centre's Asian Business Cycle Indicators (ABCIs) suggest that in ASEAN economies the growth momentum will continue.
Source: OECD
ETF Securities Releases Results of Precious Metals Bullion Vault Audit
Report Highlights ETF Securities’ Commitment to Transparency
June 15, 2011--ETF Securities today released the results of the audit conducted by Inspectorate International Limited, one of the world’s leading independent inspection and testing organizations, to review the bullion stock held on behalf of ETF Securities’ physically-backed precious metal exchange traded products (ETPs).
Separate audits were performed on the bullion held by each individual Trust in vaults in Switzerland and London. Inspectorate International verified the existence of precious metals held for the ETFS Swiss Gold Trust (SGOL) at the vaults of UBS Zurich, a sub-custodian of the Trust’s Custodian J.P. Morgan. Audits were also performed on behalf of the ETFS Silver Trust (SIVR) at the vaults of HSBC Bank in London, and ETFS Platinum Trust (PPLT) and ETFS Palladium Trust (PALL) at J.P. Morgan Chase Bank in London.
Source: ETF Securities
London Stock Exchange sees strong India fundraising pipeline
June 14, 2011--Main Market and AIM new and further issues strong in 2011
Indian share listings and AIM issues likely to exceed GDR listings in 2011-12
To hold roadshows in Mumbai and New Delhi with leading advisory and legal firms
The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) said today that its short to medium-term pipeline of Indian equity offerings remains one of the strongest among emerging markets.
The composition of the Indian fundraising pipeline is a mixture of share issues by large Indian multinationals on the Main Market, GDR issues and smaller issues on London’s AIM Market, the world’s leading stock market for growth companies. Combined, the number of share listings and AIM issues are likely to exceed GDR listings during 2011-12. Flotations on both markets are expected from a diverse range of sectors in the Indian economy including energy, natural resources, manufacturing and services.
In view of the strong interest from Indian companies, the LSEG is holding road shows in Mumbai and Delhi this month in partnership with Amarchand Mangaldas, Arden Partners, Capital MSL, Citigroup, Ernst & Young, Kotak Investment Banking & Linklaters. The roadshows will highlight the various capital raising instruments, markets and trading platforms that London offers to Indian companies.
Source: London Stock Exchange
ISDA Announces Commodity Derivatives Trade Repository Selection
June 14, 2011--The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) announced today that the ISDA Commodities Steering Committee has chosen Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) Deriv/SERV and EFETnet to partner with the Committee on the next stage of development of the Commodity Derivatives Trade Repository.
This selection is the result of a public Request for Proposals (RFP), which was issued March 25, 2011. The RFP was issued with the intention to create a trade reporting repository that ultimately will record all Commodity OTC Derivatives trade types. The repository will meet all current and future regulations governing repositories and will provide a structure to rapidly report and provide timely access to information to applicable regulators. The ISDA Commodities Steering Committee, which consists of senior business representatives in the commodity derivatives market from both buy- and sell-side firms, issued the RFP and selected the provider.
Trade repositories improve transparency by providing global regulators with significant visibility into risk exposures by firm and by counterparty. ISDA has helped establish trade repositories for other asset classes, including OTC credit default, interest rate and equity derivatives.
Source: ISDA
ISDA Research Note: On The Impossibility Of Correctly Calibrating The Current Exposure Method For Large OTC Derivatives Portfolios
June 14, 2011--Executive Summary
The capital charges for counterparty credit risk form an important part of the Basel Capital Accords. The Basel Committee permits firms to use a variety of methods to calculate regulatory capital on this risk class, including a simple approach – the constant exposure method or CEM – and a more sophisticated models-based approach known as EPE (for ‘expected positive exposure’).
Counterparty credit risk capital models estimate the potential future exposure (‘PFE’) of a portfolio of derivatives with a counterparty based on whatever margining scheme applies. The CEM approximates this PFE using a constant percentage of notional, with the portfolio capital charge being the sum of the percentages which apply to each instrument. The CEM therefore recognizes no diversification benefit. In contrast, EPE approaches model the entire future of the net portfolio and thus provide much more accurate estimates for portfolios with more than a handful of instruments. The inaccuracy of the CEM is hardly surprising as it was intended only for smaller portfolios and less sophisticated firms.
More recently the Basel Committee has proposed that the CEM be used as a method for determining the adequacy of financial resources available to an OTC derivatives central counterparty (‘CCP’). Since cleared portfolios are very large and very well-hedged, it might be imagined that the CEM is not well suited to this task. This paper confirms that suspicion. In particular we show that the use of the CEM to estimate the riskiness of CCP default fund contributions leads to a significant overstatement of risk. Further, we show that the CEM cannot be simply recalibrated to provide a more risk sensitive approach. Thus an approach which provides more accurate estimates for typical CCPs is to be preferred.
Source: ISDA
Saudi Arabia, US debated oil reserve swap before OPEC
June 14, 2011--It was to be a swap felt around the world - a plan privately discussed by the world’s largest oil exporter and the globe’s biggest consumer to take the heat out of $120-plus oil prices.
In the weeks leading up to the failed June OPEC meeting, US and Saudi officials met to discuss surprising the market with an unprecedented arrangement: exchanging urgently-needed high-quality crude oil stored in the US emergency reserve for heavier, low-quality oil from Saudi Arabia, according to people familiar with the plan.
Source: Todays Zaman
