RBC Global Asset Management (RBC GAM) has launched five new income-oriented ETFs on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Four of the funds provide actively managed exposure to segments of the Canadian, US and global fixed income universes, while the fifth offers passive exposure to Canada’s largest banking stocks.
Colorado-based Knowledge Leaders Capital has announced that its Knowledge Leaders Developed World ETF (NYSE Arca: KLDW) has surpassed $100 million in assets under management. The New York-listed ETF is linked to the Knowledge Leaders Developed World Index, an equal-weighted index of companies identified through a proprietary process that capture the so-called ‘Knowledge Effect’.
IndexIQ has reduced the management fee charged for its IQ Hedge Multi-Strategy Tracker ETF (NYSE Arca: QIA) from 0.75% to 0.53%. Including the acquired fund fees, the total expense ratio will now be 0.76%, effective 1 November 2017.
Assets invested in bond ETFs are on track to double to $1.5 trillion globally by 2022 if current growth rates persist, according to BlackRock. The asset manager behind the iShares range of ETFs notes that the global bond ETF industry has seen a significant uptick in net inflows during 2017, gathering $126.4bn as at the end of September – already surpassing 2016’s full-year flows of $115.6bn.
State Street Global Advisors‘ SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE Arca: SPY), the first ETF to launch in the US, has hit more than $250 billion in assets under management. While the milestone is clearly impressive, the giant ETF is actually losing ground to lower-cost alternatives from rival issuers iShares and Vanguard.
By Jesper Koll, head of Japan at WisdomTree.
In the world of politics and policy making, Japan has become the envy of the world. The snap election got “Team Abe” re-elected with a strong majority and they will be controlling parliament with basically the same two-thirds super majority they had before. Stability, continuity and consistency of a strong pro-growth and pro-business agenda is poised to be rewarded with a growing “Japan Premium” in financial markets.
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of NYSE, has completed its acquisition of the index business of Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML) encompassing more than 5,000 fixed income, currency and commodity indices. With the completion of the acquisition, ICE estimates AUM benchmarked against its combined fixed income index suite will be nearly $1 trillion.
VanEck has launched two new ETFs on the London Stock Exchange, the VanEck Vectors Preferred US Equity UCITS ETF (LON: PRF) and the VanEck Vectors Natural Resources UCITS ETF (LON: HAP), offering access to US preferred stocks and global equities of firms involved in commodity production, respectively.
Assets invested in actively managed ETFs listed globally have increased 44.9% in the first nine months of the year to reach a new record of $63.6 billion at the end of September, according to ETF industry consultancy ETFGI.
ETFs domiciled in Europe saw $7.4bn of inflows during September 2017, marking the 36th consecutive month of net inflows, according to analysis by ETF industry consultants ETFGI.