Global ETF News Older than One Year
Oil benchmarks gap widens to more than $3
April 27, 2010--The gap between the price of the main US and European oil benchmarks reached its widest level since August on Tuesday.
Nymex June West Texas Intermediate fell $2 to $82.20 a barrel while ICE June Brent, the North Sea benchmark, fell $1.23 to $85.60. This left the spread between the two above $3 a barrel.
Source: FT.com
Carbon permit trading buoyed by threat of supply constraints
April 27, 2010--Carbon permits have been trading at a near seven-month high, strengthened by rising power prices and rumblings that the European Commission may move to tighten supply.
Permit prices wobbled slightly on Tuesday, however, giving up some of the gains they had made over the past few days as Germany auctioned some of its stock.
But they remain at a higher level than in the past few months. The permits were trading at €15.46 on Tuesday after Germany sold 300,000 of them at €15.30 each.
Source: FT.com
Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes Newsletter - April 2010
April 27, 2010--Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes Newsletter - April 2010 is now available.
Source: Dow Jones Indexes
ROBUST MARKET FUNDAMENTALS ENSURE GOLD PRICE REMAINS RESILIENT IN FIRST QUARTER 2010
April 27, 2010-Robust market fundamentals, including evidence of both
stronger jewellery demand in India, growth in Chinese jewellery demand and sustained investor
inflows, continued to support gold price performance during the first three months of 2010, according
to the World Gold Council’s (WGC) latest Gold Investment Digest.
The report, which was published today, showed:
• The gold price rose modestly during Q1 2010, ending the quarter at US$1,115.50/oz, on
the London PM fix, compared with US$1,087.50/oz at the end of Q4 2009, as evidence
of seasonally strong jewellery demand in India and China combined with continued
global investment flows, provided a robust fundamental support to the gold price.
• On a risk-adjusted basis, gold outperformed compared with the broader commodity
complex and international equities, but slightly underperformed against US and emerging
market equities in the first quarter of 2010.
• Gold remained, on average, the least volatile of the commodities monitored by WGC1,
with the exception of the S&P GS Livestock Index, with annualised average volatility
falling to 17.6% from 20.0% in the previous quarter. By the end of Q1 2010, price
volatility fell further to 14.8% on a 22-day rolling basis, below its historical average.
Source: World Gold Council
April 2010 Monthly Preliminary Performance Report Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Indexes
April 26, 2010--The Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index was up 2.95% for the month of April. The Dow Jones-UBS Single Commodity Indexes for Wheat, Natural Gas and Nickel had the strongest gains with month-to-date returns of 9.20%, 8.93%, and 8.06%, respectively. The three most significant downside performing single commodity indexes were Sugar, Coffee and Copper, which were down -6.74%, -4.32%, and -1.18% respectively, in April.
Year to date, the Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index is down -2.25% with the Dow Jones-UBS Nickel Sub-Index posting the highest gain of 45.37% so far in 2010. Dow Jones-UBS Sugar Sub-Index has the most significant downside YTD performance, down -40.90%.
Source: Mondovisione
BlackRock clients move to passive funds, shares fall
April 26, 2010--BlackRock Inc, the giant money management firm, reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings as its funds businesses saw outflows and customers shifted to passive funds over more actively-managed ones
The asset management firm's shares were down as much as 8.8 percent as investors focused on the weaker-than-expected earnings as well as weaker-than-forecast revenue numbers even as overall profits more than quadrupled with the addition of Barclays' former exchange-traded funds business.
Source: Reuters
NASDAQ OMX Announces First Quarter 2010 New Listings Statistics
NASDAQ Captured 41 New Listings, Including 15 IPOs
April 26, 2010--The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:NDAQ) today announced that The NASDAQ Stock Market® (NASDAQ®) captured a total of 41 new listings in the first quarter of 2010, highlighted by a promising IPO market which brought 15 new companies to NASDAQ.
The two largest domestic technology IPOs of the quarter chose to list on NASDAQ. SS&C Technologies (Nasdaq:SSNC), a leading provider of financial management software, and QuinStreet (Nasdaq:QNST), a leader in vertical marketing and media on the Internet, raised $160 million and $150 million, respectively. NASDAQ continues to be the leading exchange for technology companies and is home to over 80% of the technology companies listed on a U.S. national exchange.
Another positive sign for the market was the pricing of 3 biotechnology IPOs, all of which decided to list their shares on NASDAQ. Those companies included Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:IRWD), AVEO Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:AVEO) and Anthera Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:ANTH).
Other notable domestic IPOs included Financial Engines (Nasdaq:FNGN), Meru Networks (Nasdaq:MERU) and First Interstate BancSystem (Nasdaq:FIBK). Also during the quarter, the shares of Madison Square Garden (Nasdaq:MSG) began trading on NASDAQ after the company's spin-off from Cablevision Systems (NYSE:CVC). In addition, Verizon Communications (Nasdaq:VZ) (NYSE:VZ) dual listed their shares on NASDAQ while Coffee Holding Co. (Nasdaq:JVA) celebrated their switch from NYSE Amex.
Source: NASDAQ OMX
Insurers hit at global financial tax plan
April 26, 2010--The world’s 80 largest insurance groups have written to the G20 group of nations to protest at their industry’s inclusion in proposals for a global financial services tax, saying it is unfair and would have an adverse effect on consumers.
The Geneva Association, a global lobby group for the biggest insurers, describes the application of the tax proposal from the International Monetary Fund to insurers as “inappropriate and arbitrary” and says it could increase insurance costs and reduce the amount of insurance available.
Source: FT.com
Nations disagree over IMF bank taxes
April 23, 2010--The world’s leading economies on Friday agreed to disagree for the moment on contentious plans to tax banks to fund future financial rescues.
The proposal for a levy on banks’ balance sheets and profits was high on the agenda of the G20 grouping of nations after recommendations in a feasibility report by the International Monetary Fund released earlier this week.
Source: FT.com
Derivatives dealers voice support for clearing
April 23, 2010--The amount of derivatives being centrally cleared can “easily double” in the next two years, according to industry representatives, who also said that the industry is fully behind the move.
The remarks come as financial institutions are focused on Washington negotiations aimed at producing final agreement on a new regulatory framework with enormous consequences for the industry, in which most trades are conducted bilaterally, or “over the counter “, without a central clearer.
Source: FT.com
