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Betterment Expands Socially Responsible Investment Offerings
October 22, 2020--Betterment for Advisors and other channels can access the new Climate and Social Impact portfolios.
In yet another sign of the growing interest in social responsible investing, Betterment is expanding its socially responsible investment offerings and putting them on equal footing with its core portfolio when investors open an account.
The expanded offerings are available to Betterment’s retail customers as well as Betterment for Advisors customers and Betterment for Business users, who are participants in the firm's 401(k) service.
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Source: thinkadvisor.com
IMF-Regional Economic Outlook for Western Hemisphere
October 22, 2020--Chapter 1: Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean: Pandemic Persistence Clouds the Recovery
The pandemic continues to spread in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), but economic activity is picking up. After a deep contraction in April, activity started recovering in May, as lockdowns were gradually eased, consumers and firms adapted to social distancing, some countries introduced sizable policy support, and global activity strengthened.
Real GDP is projected to contract by 8.1 percent in 2020, followed by a mild recovery in 2021 reflecting persistent spread of the virus and associated social distancing and scarring.
Risks to the outlook remain tilted to the downside, and uncertainty about the pandemic's evolution is a key source of risk. Containing the spread of the virus and addressing the health crisis remain the key policy priorities. In countries where lockdowns still hamper activity, policies should focus on ensuring that firms have sufficient liquidity, and on protecting employment and income, while developing medium-term fiscal consolidation plans to safeguard debt sustainability. In countries that are easing lockdowns, efforts should focus on supporting the recovery, including through structural reforms.
view the IMF-Regional Economic Outlook for Western Hemisphere
Source: IMF
NextFins Launches Nifty India Financials ETF, 'INDF'
October 22, 2020--n Wednesday, NextFins announced the launch of the Nifty India Financials ETF (INDF), which is now available for trading.
INDF will trade in US Dollars during US market hours. The Nifty India Financials ETF seeks to provide investment results that, before fees and expenses, generally correspond to the total return performance of the Nifty Financial Services 25/50 Index.
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Source: newsbreak.com
Asset managers in $300bn drive to build private lending funds
October 22, 2020-Asset managers are seeking to raise almost $300bn to plough into private lending deals with groups such as Goldman Sachs and Oaktree hoping to lure investors away from frothy public markets.
Publicly traded debt and equity securities have surged in price this year after central banks and governments across the world unleashed trillions of dollars worth of stimulus to dull the economic blow from the pandemic.
Managers argue that private credit- including funds set up to lend directly to companies- is one area that has not yet become saturated. It has also benefited from post-financial crisis regulations that pushed banks to tamp down lending to riskier clients.
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Source: technocodex.com
New Issuer Debuts CEF-Focused Income ETFs
October 21, 2020--Newcomer Rareview Capital rolled out two actively managed ETFs today that invest in fixed-income closed-end funds. The Rareview Tax Advantaged Income ETF (RTAI) and Rareview Dynamic Fixed Income ETF (RDFI) both invest in CEFs via proprietary quantitative models.
RTAI and RDFI come with expense ratios of 1.91% and 2.37%, respectively. Both funds list on Cboe Global Markets, the parent company of ETF.com.
Neil Azous, founder and chief investment officer of Rareview, says that the firm is focused on goals-based investment strategies.
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Source: autos.yahoo.com
Federal Reserve-Beige Book-October 21, 2020
October 21, 2020--National Summary
Overall Economic Activity
Economic activity continued to increase across all Districts, with the pace of growth characterized as slight to modest in most Districts. Changes in activity varied greatly by sector. Manufacturing activity generally increased at a moderate pace. Residential housing markets continued to experience steady demand for new and existing homes, with activity constrained by low inventories.
Banking contacts also cited increased demand for mortgages as the key driver of overall loan demand. Conversely, commercial real estate conditions continued to deteriorate in many Districts, with the exception being warehouse and industrial space where construction and leasing activity remained steady. Consumer spending growth remained positive, but some Districts reported a leveling off of retail sales and a slight uptick in tourism activity. Demand for autos remained steady, but low inventories have constrained sales to varying degrees. Reports on agriculture conditions were mixed, as some Districts are experiencing drought conditions.
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Source: federalreserve.gov
Can the US catch up with Europe on ESG?
October 21, 2020--A Biden win could make US climate change strategy more European
Christine Lagarde rocked markets last week when she said the European Central Bank would consider ditching its market neutrality principle for corporate bond purchases and start taking climate change risks into account when buying companies' debt.
Ms Lagarde, president of the central bank, had been under fire from environmentalists who argued that neutrality favoured polluters. It is a charge that Democrats have levelled against the Federal Reserve in the US.
Now, with Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden leading in many polls and the election two weeks away, attention is turning to his strategies on climate change.
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Source: technocodex.com
SEC plan to cut fund disclosures faces almost unanimous opposition
October 20, 2020--The US Securities and Exchange Commission has acquired almost unanimous opposition from firms and buyers towards plans to permit most hedge funds to obscure their inventory holdings.
The change to reporting requirements, proposed this July, would permit cash managers with lower than $3.5bn of belongings to skirt quarterly disclosures of their inventory positions, up from the present threshold of $100m.
But strategists at Goldman Sachs stated that of the two, 262 letters submitted to the SEC throughout its session interval, 99 per cent opposed the brand new rule, reflecting issues that the change might permit activist buyers to quietly construct up stakes and search to power firms into new methods.
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Source: www.24x7news
BlackRock plans huge expansion in Brazilian ETF market
October 19, 2020--BlackRock is planning to cross-list "up to 100" of its overseas exchange traded funds in Brazil to take advantage of a boom in investment sparked by plunging interest rates and market liberalisation.
The world's largest asset manager said it hoped the ETFs would be available by the end of March next year, which would mark a huge expansion on its existing range of five São Paulo-listed ETFs.
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Source: technocodex.com
The costly fallacy of 'asset class' investment
October 18, 2020--Pension funds and endowments have for years been pumping ever more of their cash into so-called alternative asset classes, such as hedge funds, private equity and infrastructure.
By picking the very best managers in these opaque and high fee-paying areas, they hope to secure the increasingly demanding pension promises they have made.
The trustees certainly haven't done anything by half measures. Last year, US public sector pension schemes had 28 per cent of their $3.6tn of assets in alternatives, while for large endowments, the figure was a truly heroic 59 per cent. It has all required the recruitment of hordes of fund managers. US endowments typically now have more than 100 of these each to run their cash (up from 18 in 1994).
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Source: technocodex.com
