Global ETF News Older than One Year
Global Corporate Rating Activity-Third-Quarter 2010
December 3, 2010--Summary
First-half global corporate (industrial and financial institution) rating trends held firm in the third quarter as industrials, emerging market issuers, and speculative grade
borrowers all continued to enjoy the bulk of the year’s credit gains. However, across all of these areas, the pace of upgrades slowed as developed market economies, in particular, struggled anew to restore economic activity to pre-crisis levels.
Across financial institutions, the rating drift remained negative in the third quarter, although not measurably worse than in the first half of the year. The combined effect of continued pressure on financial institutions and fewer upgrades among industrials was a reversal of the previous two quarters’ trend of upgrades topping downgrades. In the third quarter, rating activity was essentially flat with global corporate upgrades nearly even with downgrades.
Source: Fitch Ratings
Thomson Reuters to push ESG data out to 45,000 buy and sell-side analyst clients
December 3, 2010--Thomson Reuters is to push out environmental social and governance (ESG) data to about 45,000 buy & sell side investment analyst clients via its Datastream service as its ramps up its move into the sector following its acquisition a year ago of Asset4, the Swiss ESG research house. The company said it would include a subset of Asset4’s data on Datastream, a set of cross-asset analysis tools, from the first quarter of 2011.
Henrik Steffensen, vice president marketing and business development at Asset4, said analysts would be able to access quantitative ESG data and use it to make correlations with existing financial information. He said analyst clients would not have access to further information such as Asset4’s policy reports or more specialist ESG information, which will remain premium products.
Source: Responsible Investor
Vanguard eyes ETF growth in Canada, Hong Kong
December 3, 2010--The Vanguard Group Inc. is looking to expand its non-U.S. exchange-traded-fund business in the next five years. Specifically, the firm intends to enter Hong Kong and Canada next year, said F. William McNabb II, president and CEO.
Vanguard opened a U.K. office one year ago, and that presence — as well as the firm's business in Australia — has been well-received, said Mr. McNabb, adding that the firm is now ready to identifying further opportunities for international expansion.
Source: Investment News
Dow Jones Index Data Monthly Reports
December 3, 2010---The following Dow Jones Index Data Monthly Reports for OCtober 2010 are now available.
Index Data Monthly Report: Asia Pacific Edition
Index Data Monthly Report: MENA Edition
Index Data Monthly Report: Europe Edition
Index Data Monthly Report: Latin America Edition
Index Data Monthly Report: Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Indexes
Index Data Monthly Report: Dow Jones LATixx Indexes
Index Data Monthly Report: U.S. Edition
Index Data Monthly Report: Dow Jones Brookfield Infrastructure Indexes
Source: Dow Jones Indexes
New Report Sees Cities as Central to Climate Action
December 3, 2010-- A new report from the World Bank released today outlines how residents of cities are responsible for as much as 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time facing significant impacts from climate change. The report, Cities and Climate Change: An Urgent Agenda, says that up to 80 percent of the expected $80 billion to $100 billion per year in climate change adaptation costs will likely be borne by urban areas. Nevertheless, says the report, climate change offers cities opportunities to alter course, implement smart policies, and develop sustainable communities. Well managed, dense cities are also shown to be the most important pre-requisite to mitigation of GHG emissions and overall sustainable development.
"Many world cities, such as New York , Mexico City, Amman, or Sao Paulo are not waiting for a comprehensive and global climate deal to emerge, they are already acting on climate change,” said Andrew Steer, World Bank Special Envoy for Climate Change. “They are showing how to address mitigation, adaptation, the delivery of basic urban services, and poverty reduction through smart ideas and local initiatives. They need the support of their national governments and the international community at large.”
Cities and Climate Change: An Urgent Agenda conveys a need to act now— massive investments in buildings and infrastructure that cities in developing countries are undertaking today will lock in urban form and lifestyles for many decades to come, foretelling GHG emissions and vulnerability to climate events like wind storms, flooding, heat waves, and sea level rise. The report provides stark evidence on how city form and lifestyles have an impact on GHG emissions. Barcelona’s per capita residential GHG emissions, for example, are less than one-quarter those of Denver. Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro also provide hope as their per capita emissions are less than 2.1 tonnes CO2e per capita.
view the Cities and Climate Change: An Urgent Agenda report
Source: World Bank
Component Changes Made to Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia Titans 25 Index
December 3, 2010-- Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today announced that PPB Group Bhd (Malaysia, Food & Beverage, 4065.KU) will be removed from the Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia Titans 25 Index with the regular quarterly review.
PPB Group Bhd (Malaysia, Food & Beverage, 4065.KU) will be replaced by Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd (Malaysia, Chemicals, 5183.KU). PPB Group Bhd is being removed due to its failure to meet index eligibility requirements. The changes in the Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia Titans 25 Index will be effective after the close of trading on Friday, December 17, 2010.
Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia Titans 25 Index measures the performance of the 25 largest Malaysia-domiciled companies that pass rules-based screens for compliance with Islamic investment guidelines. The composition of the index is reviewed annually in June.
Further information on the Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia Titans 25 Index can be found at http://www.djindexes.com
Source: Dow Jones Indexes
Dow Jones Select Dividend and Dow Jones Country Titans Indexes
December 3, 2010-- Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today announced the results of the regular annual and regular quarterly review of the Dow Jones Select Dividend Indexes and the regular quarterly review of the Dow Jones Country Titans Indexes.
All changes will be effective after the close of trading on Friday, December 17, 2010.
Dow Jones Select Dividend Indexes
In the Dow Jones Global Select Dividend Index, the following 11 components will be removed: Fugro N.V. (Netherlands, Oil & Gas, FUR.AE), PPR S.A. (France, Retail, PP.FR), IMI PLC (United Kingdom, Industrial Goods & Services, IMI.LN), CNOOC Ltd. (Hong Kong, Oil & Gas, 0883.HK), YIT Oyj (Finland, Construction & Materials, YTY1V.HE), Jardine Cycle & Carriage Ltd. (Singapore, Retail, C07.SG), Koninklijke BAM Groep N.V. (Netherlands, Construction & Materials, BAMNB.AE), Schneider Electric S.A. (France, Industrial Goods & Services, SU.FR), Metso Corp. (Finland, Industrial Goods & Services, MEO1V.HE), voestalpine AG (Austria, Basic Resources, VOE.VI) and K+S AG (Germany, Chemicals, KPLUF).
Source: Dow Jones Indexes
A Status Update on Fiscal Exit Strategies-IMF Working paper
December 2, 2010--Summary: With a modest recovery in the global economy underway, and amid rising concerns about the sharp increase in government debt in several countries, debate has increasingly focused on the need to identify and implement fiscal exit strategies.
This paper reviews the medium-term plans of 25 countries - the G20 plus six others with large adjustment needs - and finds that most of them have made reasonable progress in defining these strategies. Nevertheless, strategies fall short in some areas, including committing to long-term debt targets, spelling out adjustment measures in detail, and tackling rising health care costs.
Source: IMF
FEAS November 2010
December 2, 2010-The FEAS November 2010 newsletter is now available.
Source: FEAS
BlackRock New Report * ETF Landscape Emerging Markets Industry Review: November 2010
December 2, 2010--This publication provides analysis of the growth in assets, net asset flows and trading volumes of all emerging and frontier market ETFs and ETPs.
The use of ETFs and ETPs for emerging markets exposure have always been very useful and popular for many investors since it is often difficult to achieve exposure directly in many emerging and frontier markets such as Korea and Taiwan, without foreign investor status due to a limited selection of available futures contracts offering emerging and frontier market exposure.
At the end of August 2010, there were 450 ETFs/ETPs providing exposure to various emerging markets indices with 869 listings, assets of US$193.5 Bn from 94 providers on 38 exchanges in 32 countries.
YTD, ETFs/ETPs providing exposure to emerging and frontier market indices have seen net inflows of US$30.5 Bn, with US$27.9 Bn of net new assets going into emerging and frontier market equity ETFs/ETPs, of which US$18.7 Bn went into broad emerging market equity ETFs/ETPs and US$5.7 Bn into ETFs/ETPs tracking Chinese equity indices.
In comparison, for the full year 2009, ETFs/ETPs providing exposure to emerging and frontier markets had net inflows of US$24.8 Bn, with US$23.2 Bn going into ETFs/ETPs tracking emerging and frontier equity indices, of which US$9.6 Bn went into ETFs/ETPs tracking broad emerging/frontier market equity indices and US$6.5 Bn into ETFs/ETPs tracking Chinese equity indices.
The array of ETFs/ETPs now available to track emerging markets benchmarks has grown significantly, such that an investor can now access every MSCI emerging market country except the Czech Republic and Morocco.
Emerging markets has been one of the markets where we've seen innovation in ETF/ETP structures such as allowing for exposure to India and China A share indices. We expect to see continued growth in the use of these products, as well as emerging market and frontier market exposures availability.
Note: Flow data for many emerging market ETFs is only available 6 weeks after month end via the Simfund global mutual fund database, end of August 2010 data was the latest available when the analysis was produced.
Source: Global ETF Research & Implementation Strategy Team, BlackRock
