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ETF minnows struggle to catch up to giants
January 29, 2018--Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street dominate an industry that is tough for smaller players
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Source: FT.com
US economic growth slows in fourth-quarter on surging imports
January 26, 2018--U.S. economic growth unexpectedly slowed in the fourth quarter.
Gross domestic product increased at a 2.6 percent annual rate.
The economy grew 2.3 percent in 2017, an acceleration from the 1.5 percent logged in 2016.
U.S. economic growth unexpectedly slowed in the fourth quarter as the strongest pace of consumer spending in three years resulted in a surge in imports.
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Source: CNBC.com
CFTC.gov Commitments of Traders Reports Update
January 26, 2018--The current reports for the week of January 23, 2018 are now available.
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Source: CFTC.gov
U.S. Fund-Flows Weekly Report: Equity Funds Pace Positive Weekly Net Inflows
January 26, 2018--Thomson Reuters Lipper's fund asset groups (including both mutual funds and ETFs) grew their coffers by $37.8 billion for the fund-flows week ended Wednesday, January 24. All four fund macro-groups took in net new money for the week, with equity funds (+$23.4 billion) leading the pack, followed by money market funds (+$8.2 billion), taxable bond funds (+$5.4 billion), and municipal bond funds (+$782 million).
Market Overview
Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index built on their strong performances of the year to date; the S&P 500 gained 1.25% and the Dow appreciated 0.52% for the fund-flows week. For the year to date the Dow and the S&P 500 were up 6.20% and 6.13%, respectively.
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Source: Thomson Reuters
Is Manager Selection Worth the Effort for Financial Advisors?
January 26, 2018--Key Points
Investors, particularly retail investors, are predisposed to chase the returns of investment managers.
The academic literature shows manager selection fails to produce positive excess returns, on average.
A diligent manager research effort may shrink the large amount of negative alpha from clients' performance chasing.
Introduction
This is the fourth article in our series designed to help financial advisors successfully address the challenges associated with the management of their clients' portfolios by merging key lessons from investment science and behavioral finance. In the first two articles of the series, our colleagues explained how to form reasonable long-term return expectations and why achieving those expected returns is facilitated by a clear understanding of the different risks in an investment portfolio. The third article explained how adding diversifying assets to portfolios of mainstream stocks and bonds can improve expected returns and lead to better long-term investment outcomes.
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Source: Research Affiliates
Renaissance Capital Scheduled U.S. IPOs
January 26, 2018--IPO Commentary
US IPO Week Ahead: Another wave hits with 9 deals including the Caesars Palace REIT
The IPO market continues its record-breaking start of the year with nine deals aiming to raise $3.5 billion. Casino REIT Vici Properties headlines the week with a $1 billion IPO. And the big deals keep coming:
PagSeguro pops 36% in one of the decade's top billion-dollar debuts
Brazilian payment processor PagSeguro (PAGS) raised $2.3 billion in an upsized IPO and jumped 36% on its first day. That's one of the best debuts for a billion-dollar IPO in the last decade, coming in at...
IPO Index Performance
The Renaissance IPO Index has returned 2.3% so far this year,
compared to 6.2% for the S&P 500.
IPOUSA
IPO Activity
There have been 13 IPOs priced so far this year, a +86% change from last year.
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Source: Renaissance Capital
Finra Reexamining Ban on ETF Payments to Market Makers
January 26, 2018--Time is running out for ETF sponsors and traders to make their case to regulators reconsidering a ban on letting ETF companies directly pay trading firms to make markets in their products.
As part of a broad review of rules on its books, Finra is asking the public to comment on "the effectiveness and efficiency" of Rule 5250, which governs payments between corporate securities issuers and trading firms to provide quotes on stocks, bonds or ETFs.
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Source: Richard Keary, Linkedin.com
AdvisorShares Active ETF Report: Closing Out Q4 2017
January 26, 2018--Month ending 12.31.2017
Total net assets in actively managed ETFs grew by $1.53 billion in December to reach $45.85 billion. Active ETF assets in 2017 grew by $16.4 billion, or 55%, which was far ahead of 2016's 27% growth in AUM.
The growth percentage far exceeded the overall ETF industry growth of 13.86%, as reported by Factset. Interesting to note in their data was the 38% growth in alternatives,
space, those indexed products tend to be used in active strategies. While much has rightly been made of the growth in indexed investing, we find many advisors who
use passive funds as part of active strategies.
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Source: AdvisorShares
Solactive launches Electric Vehicles and Future Mobility Index used as the underlying index for KraneShares Electric Vehicles and Future Mobility ETF
January 26, 2018--Solactive is pleased to announce the launch of the Electric Vehicles and Future Mobility Index, a smart beta thematic index tracked by KraneShares Electric Vehicles and Future Mobility ETF (Ticker: KARS) listed on the NYSE.
The index aims to mirror the performance of companies that are actively engaged in the development of future mobility solutions with a minimum market capitalization of USD 500 million.
This includes companies involved in the production of electric vehicles, autonomous driving, shared mobility, lithium and copper production, lithium-ion batteries, hydrogen fuel cell manufacturing and electric infrastructure businesses. Some examples of constituents are: Tesla, Baidu, Texas Instruments, BYD, and Samsung.
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Source: Solactive
Emerita Capital and EQM Indexes Launch Blockchain BLOK 50 Global Index
January 25, 2018--The Index is Focused on Companies Developing or Utilizing Blockchain-Based Technologies
Emerita Capital Indices, in collaboration with EQM Indexes LLC, announced the launch of its Blockchain BLOK 50 Global Index (Bloomberg: BLOK-50 and Reuters BLOK50). The index, which launched on Dec. 29, 2017, was co-developed to track the combined performance of the 50 leading public companies in the blockchain ecosystem.
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Source: Emerita Capital Indices