Global ETF News Older than One Year
State Street Global Advisors Issues Mid Year ETF & Investment Outlook
June 26, 2012--State Street Global Advisors (SSgA)*, the asset management business of State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT), today released a new report titled, 2012 ETF & Investment Outlook: Sinking or Swimming?, which focuses on developments shaping market performance and the Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) industry during the first half of 2012 and provides an updated investment outlook for the remainder of the year.
Developed by the SPDR ETF Strategy & Consulting Group, the report reveals that US ETFs attracted more than $60 billion of inflows over the first five months of 2012, as 100 new funds were launched by 17 different providers, including one new entrant to the market. Amid signs the low interest rate environment will continue for the foreseeable future, demand for dividend/fundamental ETFs – the most popular category in 2011 – remained on top, as investors added $8.9 billion of inflows to these funds in the first five months of the year. Investors also increased their exposure to credit/corporate, government credit and high yield bond ETFs.
“With concerns over job growth in the US top of mind coupled with Europe’s debt problems, investors continue to put their savings to work in ETFs that provide alternative sources of yield,” said Kevin Quigg, global head of ETF Strategy & Consulting at State Street Global Advisors. “If flows continue at this pace, 2012 will mark the sixth consecutive year that ETFs attract more than $100 billion in positive cash flows, which is remarkable given the trajectory of the markets during this period of time.”
To download a copy of 2012 ETF & Investment Outlook: Sinking or Swimming?, please visit SPDR University (www.spdru.com), State Street’s award-winning online educational resource for investment professionals or ETF Fact or Fiction (www.etffactorfiction.com), a new website launched by State Street to provide individual investors with a comprehensive, trusted resource for ETF education.
Source: State Street Global Advisors (SSgA)
ETFS Precious Metals Weekly:What Will Drive the Next Leg of the Gold Bull Market?
June 25, 2012--Gold price drops as Fed extension of 'Operation Twist' disappoints, investors’' look for next round of quantitative easing (QE).
It appears that most investors already expected an extension of the Fed’s ‘Operation Twist’, so when further easing was not announced last week following the FOMC meeting, the gold price and equity markets declined.
In the current environment, the main driver of the gold price appears to be perceptions of the likelihood of another round of QE, as gold is viewed as one of the few hedges against US dollar debasement. Statements by key FOMC members make it clear that the Fed is carefully watching for further signs of slowing momentum in the economy to implement more aggressive easing. Fed Chairman Bernanke said that the US needs job growth of 100,000 just to maintain “stability”. He also said the US needs 150,000-200,000 to hit Fed target of 8-8.2% unemployment by end 2012. Fed Vice Chairman and President of the New York Fed has said he thinks the US needs to see payroll gains of around 300,000 per month. Their comments give a clear indication that one of the Fed’s key benchmarks for determining the likelihood and timing of another round of QE is changes in US Non-Farm Payrolls (NFPs). If NFPs (and related indicators such as jobless claims) do not quickly show substantial and sustainable improvement, a new round of QE seems increasingly likely. Therefore the likely driver of the next sustained leg up in the gold bull market is signs of continued weakness in the US labour market. The potential negative impact on the US economy and financial system resulting from a deepening of the financial crisis in
Europe is another potential trigger to the extent it drives European investors out of Euros into gold (as we saw in early 2010).
Silver hits 18-month low as volatility reaches 2-mth high. Silver tends to underperform other precious metals in times of heightened market uncertainty, as witnessed last week when it slumped 6% compared to 4% declines across other precious metals. The silver price dropped below US$27 and volatility rose to just under 30% on an annualised basis. While current market conditions are difficult for silver, the silver price now sits around the same level it was when it bounced at the end of 2012 and early 2011. Net speculative futures positioning is now back to end 2011 levels.
visit www.etfsecurities.com for more info
Source: ETF Securities
Thomson Reuters Adds Psychological Analysis to Machine Readable News
Thomson Reuters MarketPsych Indices identify human emotion and sentiment in news and social media posts to influence and support investment and trading strategies
June 25, 2012--Thomson Reuters today expanded its news analytics service to include a new psychological analysis capability that gauges market sentiment by analysing human emotion in news and social media in order to influence and support investment and trading strategies in financial markets.
Thomson Reuters is now offering multi-dimensional psychological analysis for machine readable news, including emotion and sentiment associated with specific countries, commodities, currencies and economic sectors.
Thomson Reuters MarketPsych Indices (TRMIs) provide easy-to-interpret real-time psychological analysis of news and social media. Users can view and model the impact of investor psychology across global asset classes and regions by analyzing the specific attitudes expressed within stories and tracking the macroeconomic themes that are most relevant to price movements in each asset class. This detail level of interpretation helps users to answer in-depth questions with quantifiable evidence to support specific hypotheses in a way not previously possible.
Source: Thomson Reuters
Dow Jones Indexes, FXCM jointly launch Dow Jones FXCM Yen Index
Index to Reflect Changes in Value of Japanese Yen Measured Against Basket of Liquid Currencies:
U.S. Dollar, Euro, Australian Dollar, New Zealand Dollar
June 25, 2012-Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, and FXCM Inc. (NYSE: FXCM), a global online provider of foreign exchange trading and related services, today announced they have collaborated to launch the Dow Jones FXCM Yen Index.
The new index measures changes in the value of the Japanese yen against a basket of four of the most-transacted currencies against the yen: the U.S. dollar, the euro, the Australian dollar and the New Zealand dollar.
The index is the second to be offered collaboratively by Dow Jones Indexes and FXCM. In May 2011, the two firms launched the Dow Jones FXCM Dollar Index.
Source: AME Info
NASDAQ Closing Cross Calculates U.S. Russell Indexes for the Ninth Year During Russell's Annual Reconstitution
June 25, 2012--In a release published on June 22, 2012, by The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:NDAQ), please note that a reference to "687.9 billion shares" in the first paragraph should read "687.9 million shares." The corrected release follows:
The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:NDAQ) today announced the NASDAQ Closing Cross was used for the ninth consecutive year to rebalance NASDAQ-listed securities in the entire family of U.S. Russell indexes during their annual reconstitution. Approximately 687.9 million shares representing $9.5 billion were executed in the Closing Cross in 2.9 seconds across some 2,195 NASDAQ-listed stocks.
Source: NASDAQ OMX
IMF Working paper-Quantifying Impact of Aging Population on Fiscal Space
June 25, 2012--Summary: This paper quantitatively investigates how population aging trend affects fiscal space measured as unused revenue generating capacity by utilizing a standard neoclassical growth model.
A calibration exercise for G-7 countries shows that France, Germany and Italy suffer greater revenue impact from a given reduction in hours worked due to their larger government expenditure. Corrective measures such as pension reform and flexible expenditure policy would be required in order to mitigate the impact of aging on fiscal space.
view IMF working paper-Quantifying Impact of Aging Population on Fiscal Space
Source: IMF
Actividades de Construccion y Servicios S.A. Of Spain Added To Dow Jones Global Select Dividend Index
June 25, 2012--Actividades de Construccion y Servicios S.A. will be added to the Dow Jones Global Select Dividend Index, Dow Jones Indexes announced today.
The addition of Actividades de Construccion y Servicios S.A. follows the removal of Portugal’s CIMPOR-Cimentos de Portugal S.G.P.S. S.A., which is being removed due to its acquisition by Camargo Correa (Brazil).
Headquartered in Madrid, Spain, Actividades de Construccion y Servicios S.A. is a holding company primarily engaged through its subsidiaries in construction and engineering.
Source: Dow Jones Indexes
It's time to break the vicious cycles, says BIS in 82nd Annual Report
June 24, 2012--Those hoping for quick fixes to the strains in the global economy will continue to be disappointed, writes the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in its 82nd Annual Report, released today.
Five years on from the outbreak of the financial crisis, and the global economy is still unbalanced, seemingly becoming more so as interacting weaknesses continue to amplify each other. The goals of balanced growth, balanced economic policies and a safe financial system still elude us.
The Report points out that the financial sector, governments, and households and firms need to repair their balance sheets: "the financial sector needs to recognise losses and recapitalise; governments must put fiscal trajectories on a sustainable path; and households and firms need to deleverage. As things stand, each sector's burdens ... are worsening the position of the other two."
view the BIS Annual Report 2011/2012
Source: BIS
Why Are So Many Top Executives Leaving BlackRock?
June 23, 2012--A series of high-level departures from BlackRock this month has raised questions about the direction of the world's largest money manager.
Coming in rapid succession over the past two weeks, the departures included Susan Wagner, a founding partner and vice chairman, who will retire at the end of June, and Robert Capaldi, who has already left and was senior client strategist for Chief Executive Laurence Fink.
Source: CNBC
Morgan Stanley shifted derivatives in first quarter
June 22, 2012--Morgan Stanley (MS.N) shifted more of its derivatives positions to its U.S. bank unit in the first quarter, as credit rating downgrades from Moody's Investors Service weighed on its business, data from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency showed on Friday.
Moody's downgraded 15 of the world's largest banks on Thursday and cut Morgan Stanley's unsecured debt rating two notches to Baa1, the third lowest investment grade.
Ratings in the Baa tier can be detrimental for banks with large capital markets operations because they can reduce the number of counterparties willing to trade with the firm and also increase the amount of collateral banks need to back trades.
Source: Reuters
