Global ETF News Older than One Year
La Francaise AM and S&P Capital IQ sign a strategic partnership
June 22, 2012--La Française AM, an asset management firm with both a securities and real estate expertise, has partnered with the Global Markets Intelligence (GMI) team at S&P Capital IQ in order to establish a global credit expertise and expand its investor-driven business development.
For both La Française AM and S&P Capital IQ, this partnership reflects an ambitious strategy for business development and innovation by leveraging the 35 year track record of La Francaise AM in asset management and distribution and the unique data and analytics of GMI (Global Markets Intelligence), a unit of S&P Capital IQ.
Source: RFP Connect
S&P Indices Launches Shariah Index with the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
New Index Meets the Increasing Demand for a Shariah-Compliant Benchmark in Islamic Countries
June 22, 2012--S&P Indices announced today the launch of the S&P/OIC COMCEC 50 Shariah
Index, which is designed to measure the performance of 50 leading Shariah-compliant companies from the
member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The Index has been designed in partnership with the OIC.
Companies from all 19 countries and territories whose exchanges are members of the OIC Exchanges and are covered by S&P Indices are eligible for the Index. These are: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
Source: Standard & Poor's
NASDAQ Closing Cross Calculates U.S. Russell Indexes for the Ninth Year During Russell's Annual Reconstitution
June 22, 2012--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 billion shares representing $9.5 billion were executed in the Closing Cross in 1.15 seconds across some 2,195 NASDAQ-listed stocks.
NASDAQ official closing prices (NOCPs) determined by the NASDAQ Closing Cross are widely used throughout the industry, by Russell Investments, Standard & Poor's, Dow Jones, and mutual funds across the country. The NASDAQ Closing Cross mechanism provides market participants with transparency and consistent prices with the dissemination of imbalances, indicative and likely clearing prices every five seconds via the Net Order Imbalance Indicator. NASDAQ OMX's INET technology platform processes accurate closing prices for the industry in microseconds.
Source: NASDAQ OMX
EPFR Global Fund Data News-Prospect of more quantitative easing offers some comfort in a cold investment climate
June 22, 2012--Going into the final week of 2Q12 there was no shortage of things for investors to worry about, among them slowing growth in China and Germany, Spain's banking woes, corporate profit warnings and signs of weakness in the US economy.
But flows in and out of EPFR Global-tracked funds suggested that a significant number of those investors see today’s bad news as tomorrow’s new round of quantitative easing. Flows into High Yield Bond Funds jumped to a seven week high, Equity Funds overall posted back-to-back weekly inflows for the first time since mid-March, redemptions from US Investment Grade Bond Funds hit a 13 week high and Mortgage Backed Bond Funds took in fresh money for the 67th straight week.
Visit http://www.epfr.com for more info
Source: EPFR
BlackRock protects iShares ETFs from stock lending
BlackRock, the investment group that owns iShares, has taken steps to remove the risk from stock lending in its exchange traded funds (ETFs).
June 22, 2012--BlackRock has announced two measures to reduce investor anxiety over the practice of stock lending by its iShares exchange traded funds (ETFs).
BlackRock has said it will indemnify its iShares ETF range from the risk of a borrower default. This means that if a company borrows stock from an iShares ETF and then goes bust and is unable to return the stock, BlackRock will compensate the fund and ensure there is no financial loss for investors.
Source: CityWire
Global finance 'dangerously close' to Ponzi scheme status, say selectors
Fund selectors believe the world of global finance is becoming an increasingly high risk enterprise according to a poll at Citywire's Germany event in Cologne.
When questioned over whether global finance has become a ponzi scheme an overwhelming majority (66%) said it is getting dangerously close to turning into this type of fraudulent operation.
Just under a third (23%) had a more positive view of markets' efficiency believing it is currently alive and well. Only 6% had the bleak outlook that we are tittering on the edge of failure and that one more wrong move could mean disaster.
Source: CityWire
Brics eye joint anti-crisis fund
June 21, 2012--Major emerging economies may set up a joint anti-crisis fund if they do not receive enough say in decision making at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under proposed voting reforms, a senior Russian official said.
The leaders of Brics nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - pledged at the Group of 20 summit in Mexico to chip in $75bn to boost the IMF’s lending power but had sought to tie the loans to voting reforms.
Source: FIN24
Moody's downgrades 15 major banks
Bank stocks were hit hard in anticipation of the move.
June 21, 2012--Thursday's downgrade of 15 big global banks is just the latest stop on Moody's Investor Service's world tour of the financial sector.
Back in February, Moody's announced that it would review the credit ratings of 17 global investment banks. On May 14, it downgraded the credit ratings of Italian banks that included UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo (ISNPY -2.52%). On May 18 it downgraded 16 Spanish banks including Banco Santander (SAN -2.72%). June 6 brought downgrades to seven German and three Austrian banks.
Source: MSN Money
DCGX Academy-FED SPEAKS:Operation Twist: Sell 267$B short term, buy long term
June 21, 2012--HIGHLIGHTS
FED ACTIONS
Operation Twist : Sell 267$ Billion of short term debt (Less than 3 Years) and Buy debt (6-30) long term
It will help to put downward pressure on longer term interest rates make financial condition more accommodative
Fed Cut its growth projection 1.9 % from 2.9%
Joblessness predicted at 8.2%
Rupee
Declines for the 4th Day @ 56.40
INR declined by 25 paise to 56.40 at opening on stronger dollar against euro and Asian currencies overseas. Iincreased demand from importers and a weak opening in the local equity market also put pressure on the rupee, traders said. Dollar gained against euro in overseas markets on concerns that Spain's banks may need a bigger fund infusion than stated , INR had ended lower by 19 paise at 56.15 against the dollar yesterday as importers bought dollars in late trade. BSE Sensex fell by 43.04 points, or 0.25 per cent, Other reasons atributed is tjhe limited scope of the Fed Easing and HSBC PMI showed contraction in China . RBI intervention is expected
GOLD
Gold declines for the 3rd day
Gold declined for a third day in the longest losing run in a month after the Fedl Reserve extended its Operation Twist program while refraining from additional debt purchases. Spot gold declined to 0.6 % to $1,597.50 and was trading at $1,600.63 in Asian hours . Bullion dropped to a one-week low . Fed extended its program of replacing short-term bonds with longer-term debt by $267 billion through the end of 2012. Gold prices, up for a 12th year as investors sought protection from weakening currencies and financial turmoil, almost doubled in that time. Fed officials reduced their estimate for growth in 2012 to between 1.9 % and 2.4 % from 2.4 % to 2.9 % projected in April. The jobless rate will end the year at 8 % to 8.2 %. August futures fell for a fourth day on falling 1.1 % to $1,598.10 . Fed Chairman Bernanke said " If we don't see continued improvement in the labor market, we'll be prepared to take additional steps if appropriate, and added Additional asset purchases would be among the things that we would certainly consider."
Source: DGCX Academy
IMF Working paper-Too Much Finance?
June 20, 2012--Summary: This paper examines whether there is a threshold above which financial development no longer has a positive effect on economic growth.
We use different empirical approaches to show that there can indeed be "too much" finance. In particular, our results suggest that finance starts having a negative effect on output growth when credit to the private sector reaches 100% of GDP. We show that our results are consistent with the "vanishing effect" of financial development and that they are not driven by output volatility, banking crises, low institutional quality, or by differences in bank regulation and supervision.
view the IMF Working paper-Too Much Finance?
Source: IMF
