Global ETF News Older than One Year
A primer on rare earth minerals
March 13, 2012--Rare earth minerals, at the heart of a major trade dispute between China and the United States, the European Union and Japan, are coveted natural resources used in high-tech items ranging from iPhones to missiles.
These elements are, surprisingly, not that rare, but unlike more common minerals are found in low concentrations and are more difficult to mine and separate.
Techniques of ion exchange and solvent extraction have led to important advances in purifying rare earth elements since the end of World War II, even as increased use of electronics has increased the demand.
Source: EUbusiness
US seeks WTO action on China's rare earth controls
March 13, 2012-- The United States on Tuesday joined the EU and Japan in a complaint at the World Trade Organization against Chinese controls on exports of rare earths, the chief US trade negotiator said.
"China continues to make its export restraints more restrictive, resulting in massive distortions and harmful disruptions in supply chains for these materials throughout the global marketplace," said the US Trade Representative Ron Kirk.
The complaint argues that China places restrictions on the export of rare earths -- 17 elements critical to the making of high-tech products from iPods to missiles -- that are illegal under global trade rules.
Source: EUbusiness
IMF Working paper-BRICs' Philosophies for Development Financing and Their Implications for LICs
March 12, 2012--Summary: Flows of development financing from the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) to low income countries (LICs) have surged in recent years.
Unlike aid from traditional donors, BRICs (excluding Russia) view their financing as primarily based on the principles of South-South cooperation, focusing on mutual benefits without attachment of policy conditionality. This paper provides an overview of the philosophies and modalities of BRIC financing and examines their implications for LIC economies and future LIC-BRIC engagement.
view IMF Working paper-BRICs' Philosophies for Development Financing and Their Implications for LICs
Source: World Bank
ETFS Precious Metals Weekly: Gold price drops to six-week low, speculative longs cut at fastest rate in nearly 8 years
March 12, 2012--Gold price drops to six-week low as US jobs boost removes hopes of near-term QE3 from US Fed. The gold price fell to its lowest level in six weeks last week, dropping below its 200-day moving average, before rebounding on Monday back above the key psychological level of $1,700oz.
The Greek Private Sector debt deal was largely ignored, with investor attention focused on continued evidence that the US economy is recovering and the likelihood another round quantitative easing from the Fed is unlikely in the near-term. Strong US non-farm payrolls (NFP) numbers on Friday were the clincher. The strength of the US economy relative to those in Europe has kept the US dollar in ascendence, providing a nearterm headwind to gold price gains despite on-going sovereign concerns in the Eurozone and expectations of exceptionally low real interest rates in the world’s major reserve currency economies.
Speculators cut long gold positions at fastest rate in nearly eight years, setting better positioning base for the gold price. Net long speculative gold positions in the week to March 6th fell by 30%, their their fastest rate since April 2004. Further clear-out last week is likely given the sharpness of the price decline. Other precious metals also saw speculative positioning decline sharply, with silver net longs declining nearly 30% and palladium and platinum net long positions falling by 13% and 5% respectively (see page 4). Further evidence of a moderation in Chinese economic activity last week weighed on cyclically-linked metals. Platinum group metals prices in particular were also likely negatively affected by the resumption of production at the Rustenberg mine in South Africa, the world’s largest platinum mine (15% of global production).
visit www.etfsecurities.com for more info
Source: ETF Securities
New capital markets research portal opens today – CMCRC
March 12, 2012--Capital Markets Co-operative Research Centre (CMCRC) today opened a new portal for its research that measures and ranks the quality of global securities markets.
The Market Quality Forum is a free resource. It publishes monthly statistics for various market metrics including costs of trading in various markets; incidences of insider trading and market manipulation; and metrics around liquidity provision, for all the major markets in the world.
The Forum was conceived by CMCRC Chief Scientist, Michael Aitken. It's the first time such extensive data on the efficiency and integrity of markets has been made regularly available for free.
"The idea behind this is to get people talking about market quality, and show them how dynamic it is. You can see the influence of policy changes as they come into effect – it's fascinating stuff and I'm very pleased that CMCRC has been able to unlock this information and make it available. "
The data in the Forum is part of a broad, global review of market quality, the Market Quality Framework, which Aitken's team has been developing over the past ten years.
Source: Capital Markets Co-operative Research Centre (CMCRC)
February 2012 Market Share and Market Dynamics Executive Summary
March 12, 2012--The February 2012 Market Share and Market Dynamics Executive Summary is now available.
Source: FIF
ISITC 2012 Survey Reveals Industry Uncertainty around Future of Financial Services
82% of ISITC’s members say vision for the future of industry is "cloudy"
March 12, 2012--ISITC (The International Securities Association for Institutional Trade Communication), the industry trade group focused on standards in transaction processing and related communications, today announced the results from its annual member survey which focused on industry perspectives on the future of the financial services industry. Results revealed that while progress has been made, the vision for the future is still unclear.
The 2012 annual member survey polled executives from leading investment managers, broker/dealers, custodians and vendors on issues ranging from future priorities to IT spending. Findings revealed uncertainty within the financial services industry with 82% of respondents stating that the vision for the future of the industry is "cloudy" and that it’s unclear as to what the market will look like in 2020.
Source: ISITC (The International Securities Association for Institutional Trade Communication)
FTSE Licenses Old Mutual Global Index Trackers With Use of Leading Alternatively-Weighted Indices for Two New Index-Tracking Funds
March 12, 2012--FTSE Group ("FTSE"), the award winning global index provider, announces the licensing of the globally established FTSE RAFI Index Series and the recently launched FTSE EDHEC-Risk Efficient Index Series, to Old Mutual Global Index Trackers ("OMGxT"). The adoption of these indices highlights investors increasing interest in alternatively-weighted sources of passive investment, and FTSE’s fast growing index range within this space.
The choice of alternatively-weighted indices reinforces investor demand for new and innovative tools to capture systematic sources of return, diversify core portfolios and complement existing market-capitalised strategies.
Source: FTSE
Efficient collateral management service targeted for Canada: new plans announced by Clearstream and CDS Clearing and Depository Services
Canada's CDS looks to join Brazil, Australia and South Africa in the use of Clearstream's Liquidity Hub GO (Global Outsourcing) * Exclusive talks to develop a triparty collateral management service for Canada *CDS clients to gain by using collateral more effectively
March 12, 2012--Canadian financial institutions are set to benefit from a new efficient and effective collateral management service planned for development by Clearstream and CDS Clearing and Depository Services Inc. (CDS). The two companies signed a letter of intent last week and will now move forward in exploring the creation of a new triparty collateral management service for Canada.
The service would enable Canadian market participants to meet demands for collateral in the most cost effective and operationally efficient way possible: CDS, the Canadian central securities depository, would utilise Clearstream’s collateral management infrastructure and the Liquidity Hub GO service to allocate, optimise and substitute domestically held collateral on a fully automated basis and in real time.
Liquidity Hub GO for Canada would reduce operational risks and costs as well as minimize the opportunity cost associated with collateral fragmentation. CDS clients would be able to handle their collateral needs more strategically. Collateral would remain in the domestic market. Clearstream is the only collateral management services provider which can manage collateral across time zones and regions while enabling the assets to remain in the respective domestic market and under local legislation.
Source: Clearstream
Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange Weekly Market Commentary
March 11, 2012--Economic Data Overview
The theme of the month ahead was set this week, as the Greek debt swap was finally agreed and 95.7% of Greece's privately held bonds will participate in the swap after so-called collective action clauses are triggered. For now the debt crisis and euro currency uncertainty may have been put on the back burner.
However, there are still huge issues in Europe which have yet to feed through to the market. The use of collective action clauses may trigger $3 billion of insurance payouts, and where is this money going to come from? Pension funds and European banks are going to see reserves plundered and balance sheets undermined on non-insured bonds while other financial institutions will have to come good on insurance obligations.
The ECB which left rates unchanged yesterday, but raised its inflation target ceiling to 2.3%, is set to sail a difficult course this year. The combined problems of austerity, increasing commodity prices - especially oil - credit restriction on corporate and personal lending by banks trying to survive in depressed economies, will make it hard to let that work in all Eurozone regions. Europe's biggest economy, Germany is set to grow much faster than the smaller debt-crippled economies, so keeping inflation under control while tending to the needs of a two speed Europe will be very hard to achieve. However, Draghi is convinced that better liquidity, recapitalised banks, stability and renewed confidence in the euro project are all enough to generate growth and attract external investment. Even if all these factors remain in place, the market still has to deal with referendums on the new Fiscal Compact and failure to pass this will cut off the lifeline to further bailout funds. This is something even an optimistic Draghi is unwilling to comprehend.
US Jobs data, released on Friday was strong and keeps the trend of growth in America, one of the main bright sparks in the world economy, intact. In addition, a revision to previous month's data releases means that an overall number of 300,000 new jobs were reported in Friday's data.
Source: Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange (DGCX)
