Global ETF News Older than One Year
Accounting rules deadline under threat
April 14, 2010--Accounting standard setters have said they could fail to meet a timetable for the creation of a single global set of accounting rules because they are so far unable to agree on how to value financial instruments, one of the most controversial issues of the crisis.
The Group of 20 leading industrialised nations last September pledged support for a global set of accounting standards to improve capital flows and cut down on cross-border arbitrage in response to the financial crisis. They set a deadline of June 2011.
Source: FT.com
iShares Eclipses $500 Billion in Assets Under Management
April 14, 2010--BlackRock, today announced its Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) platform, iShares, has reached global Assets under Management (AUM) of US$509 billion as of March 31, 2010. This is a significant milestone for the business that continues to drive the ETF industry's rapid growth and accounts for nearly half of the industry's total assets under management.
iShares, celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year, was founded in 2000 and has grown to be a leading fund family and has significantly impacted the financial services landscape and how investors view and utilize funds. Today, retail and professional investors use iShares ETFs to access broad and specific segments of the market and they continue to be attracted to the benefits that include tradability, transparency, diversification and cost- and tax-efficiency. This new milestone follows a strong 2009 for iShares and ETFs as they pushed further into the investing mainstream.
"iShares ETFs have significantly impacted the way people invest by providing investors with access and liquidity to markets around the world, and achieving this $500 billion AUM milestone greatly validates the acceptance of iShares ETF offerings," said Michael Latham, Head of US iShares. "iShares continues to help drive global ETF industry growth by educating financial intermediaries and the investing public about iShares as core investments, continuing the development of innovative, solutions-oriented products and expanding the availability of iShares via 401(k) and other platforms."
iShares has 434 ETFs globally as of March 31, 2010. iShares US has 201 funds with US$409 billion AUM and iShares Europe has 172 ETFs with US$100 billion AUM.
Source: BlackRock
NYSE Arca Europe To Launch U.S. Equities
April 14, 2010--NYSE Arca Europe today announced that it will admit U.S. equities to its trading platform when it launches the components of the S&P 100 Index for trading during the second quarter of 2010, creating the first truly transatlantic trading platform. EuroCCP, will offer clearing services for these securities with settlement taking place via EuroCCP’s account at The Depository Trust Company (DTC), the U.S. central securities depository and subsidiary of the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), providing trading firms with a cost-effective posttrade solution.
This service will provide trading firms the first-ever opportunity to trade U.S. securities on a European platform during European trading hours with settlement at DTC. Initially, S&P 100 stocks will be admitted to the platform; however, further stocks are likely to be introduced in the near future.
Virginie Saade, Head of NYSE Arca Europe, said “Our clients have shown a strong interest in being able to trade U.S. stocks through NYSE Arca Europe, seeing this as a good business opportunity. As part of NYSE Euronext, we have been able to leverage the Group’s knowledge and experience of the U.S. market, as well as our relationship with EuroCCP, to help unlock the U.S. stocks for our European clients for the first time, at low cost. This is an opportunity for us to create the first transatlantic trading platform and is an important step towards becoming a truly global MTF.”
Source: NYSE Arca Europe
IMF adds weight to big bank surcharges
April 13, 2010--The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday urged US and European regulators to consider imposing higher customised capital requirements on “systemically important” banks deemed “too big to fail”.
The discussion of capital surcharges for big banks will prove controversial on Wall Street and in London, where bankers have argued that large institutions should not be penalised by regulators because of their size
Source: FT.com
Oil sands resolution continues to gain pensions support
April 12, 2010--Several major US pension funds and Australian superannuation investors are the latest players to back a call for BP to report further information on the implications of extracting oil from tar sands.
BP will face a motion tabled by UK lobbying body FairPensions at its AGM later this week calling for the company to report details of the financial, environmental and social risks of using tar sands from next year.
Source: IP&E
Quarterly ETP Market Update: Growth on Track
April 12, 2010--Our 15-20% global ETP market growth forecast over 2010, assuming flat
equity markets is on track. In the first quarter of 2010, the global ETP market
reached $1.14 trillion experiencing overall growth of 3.5%. Growth was
fuelled by strong fixed income inflows on both sides of the Atlantic, and
strong European equity inflows that kept the global growth on track despite
equity outflows in the US and Asian markets.
The US ETP market grew by 3.9% in Q1’10 and it is on track with our forecast of 15-20% growth by year end, assuming flat equity markets. The European market continued to grow at twice the rate of the US market and experienced growth of 8.5% over Q1’10. Our forecast of the European market growing at 20-25% over 2010 remains on track, with a possibility that the growth rate could be revised upwards pending cash flow performance in Q2’10. It is worth noting that despite the fact that the European market is 3 times smaller than the US market, it saw comparable cash flows over Q1’10 (US: $9.3, EU; $9.9).
The US ETP market experienced inflows of $9.3 billion over Q1’10. US equity ETPs experienced outflows of $2.3 billion over the quarter, while commodities finished the quarter flat and fixed income saw very strong inflows of $11.3 billion. Extreme US equity ETP market outflows that peaked at $23 billion on February 9 2010 reversed as equity market volatility reached record lows for the past year by quarter end (8.31% on 31/3/010). Re-bounding US market equity ETP cash flows followed a steady trajectory suggesting they were driven by fundamentals rather than quarter-end window dressing.
US commodity ETPs emerged as the second most traded US ETP asset class after equity due to the fact that these instruments remain largely a trader’s tool, while other ETP asset classes such as fixed income are more of a buyand- hold investment.
In Europe, all asset classes continued to experience inflows, totalling €7.5 billion, throughout Q1’10, with equity and alternative cash flow trajectory remaining positively steeper than other asset classes, despite converging volatility patterns.
Overall, the global ETP market experienced a very strong product launch calendar over Q1’10, with a total of 242 new products globally (Europe: 171, US: 57 and Asia 14). While all asset classes saw new product launches globally, the flavour in Europe was commodities and alternatives while in the US it was emerging markets.
Source: Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Börse launches fastest algo news feed with macroeconomic information
"AlphaFlash” delivers indicators into algorithmic trading applications
:
April 12, 2010--Deutsche Börse expands its data and news feed offering by launching AlphaFlash,
the fastest currently available data feed for machine readable, trading
relevant macroeconomic releases. AlphaFlash delivers more than 150 economic indicators from the US, Canada and Europe. Market participants use this data as triggers for their trading algorithms.
AlphaFlash is the first joint product of the Deutsche Börse’s segment Market Data & Analytics and the US financial news agencies Need to Know News (NTKN) and Market News International (MNI), both entities of Deutsche Börse Group. “AlphaFlash ideally combines the strengths of all partners. With AlphaFlash we are assuming the lead in the delivery of global event data for algo traders”, said Georg Gross, Head of Front Office Data & Analytics at Deutsche Börse.
As fully accredited news agencies NTKN and MNI have direct access to government lock-up rooms as well as embargoed news releases. Economic events such as central bank decisions, employment figures, inflation numbers as well as GDP are processed so they become available with minimum latency to speed sensitive algo traders via Deutsche Börse’s high speed network. The information can be used in trading applications immediately following its release.
Source: Deutsche Börse
BlackRock-ETF Landscape Global Handbook Q1 2010
April 9, 2010--At the beginning of March 2010 the global ETF industry had 2,091 ETFs with 3,998 listings, assets of US$1,001.9 Bn, from 115 providers on 40 exchanges around the world.
Additionally, there were 630 Exchange Traded Products (ETPs), with 921 listings and assets of US$150.03 Bn from 40 providers on 18 exchanges. Combined, there were 2,721 products with 4,919 listings, assets of US$1,152.2 Bn from 139 providers on 43 exchanges around the world.
Source: Global ETF Research & Implementation Strategy Team, BlackRock
Hedge Fund Assets to Hit $2 Trillion by Year-End, Survey Says
April 7, 2010--Global hedge fund assets may return to the pre-financial crisis peak of almost $2 trillion by year- end, boosted by investment profits and capital inflows, according to a Credit Suisse Group AG survey of investors.
Industry assets may grow 25 percent from the $1.6 trillion at the end of 2009, according to the annual survey published today. The Zurich-based lender polled about 600 institutional investors worldwide with about $1 trillion of hedge fund assets between them, or above 60 percent of the industry total.
Hedge funds posted the strongest annual return in a decade last year, helping to reverse capital outflows in the second half of 2009.
Source: Bloomberg
Xtrakter Launches New OTC Liquidity Service
April 9, 2010--Xtrakter, the fixed income specialist, made the following announcement today: Xtrakter is pleased to announce the launch of XVOL its new OTC liquidity service.
XVOL offers fund, risk and performance managers the unique ability to determine the liquidity of differing fixed income securities they may currently hold or be monitoring. XVOL specifically provides subscribers with the total volume figure for each security traded in the preceding month and a unique flag indicating the level of trading in each listed security within pre-defined bands. The service is based on the actual level of trading in the previous month and does not include synthetic data.
Source: Xtrakter,
