State Street Global Advisors has introduced three currency-hedged share classes for the recently launched European-listed SPDR Barclays Global Aggregate UCITS ETF. The new share classes offer currency hedging relative to US dollars, pounds sterling, or euros.

By Andy Sparks, head of fixed income research strategies, MSCI.

Many investors may have only a qualitative understanding of the ability of passive fund managers to track the returns of a fixed-income index. Our analysis uses tracking error to provide a quantitative measure of the ease – or difficulty – of consistently tracking an index. We find generally low to moderate tracking error across broad parts of the bond market. Our analysis also suggests that less liquid and higher volatility sectors (such as high yield) tend to have higher tracking error.

Smart beta index provider ERI Scientific Beta has announced that assets tracking its indices reached $25 billion at the end of December 2017, up substantially from 30 June 2017 when assets under replication amounted to $16bn. Professor Noël Amenc, CEO of Scientific Beta, said, “[The indices] remain based on the double diversification of factor and specific risks, and do not sacrifice the latter in favour of a concentrated portfolio optimised in-sample.”

Invesco has cross-listed three PowerShares fixed income ETFs onto SIX Swiss Exchange, each tracking Bloomberg Barclays indices. The ETFs offers exposure to US dollar-denominated corporate bonds, euro-denominated corporate bonds, and dollar-denominated emerging market sovereign bonds.

US-based leveraged and inverse ETF specialist Direxion has debuted a new range of ETFs, under a new brand called “Portfolio+ ETFs”. The ETFs provide lightly leveraged exposure to their underlying indices. Andy O’Rourke, Managing Director at Direxion, said, “Over time, a small amount of added exposure can make a significant difference. At the right price point, just a 25% boost allows advisors who already manage a diversified strategy to seek out additional risk-adjusted returns in a manageable way. “

Assets invested in ETFs listed in Canada grew by $4.9 billion in January 2018 to reach a record high of $122bn at the end of the month, according to ETF industry consultants ETFGI. The surge in assets represents the greatest absolute monthly increase for the Canadian ETF industry in almost two years.

Vanguard has launched six new factor-based ETFs — the firm’s first actively managed ETFs in the US — on Cboe ETF Marketplace. The suite consists of five single factor funds, targeting exposure to the minimum volatility, value, momentum, liquidity, and quality factors, and a multi-factor approach, each within the US equities universe. Vanguard CEO Tim Buckley, commented, “The newly launched factor funds represent a differentiated approach – disciplined, rules-based, targeted exposure to factors – along with Vanguard’s low costs.”

UBS Global Asset Management has introduced an accumulating share class for its UBS MSCI World Socially Responsible UCITS ETF on Deutsche Börse’s Xetra and Frankfurt exchanges.

London-based commodity ETP specialist ETF Securities has reported that weekly inflows into its agricultural ETPs reached their largest levels ever last week, totalling $54.7 million. The firm notes that the majority of agricultural commodities are trading higher in 2018 owing to severe weather conditions affecting forecasts of supply.

ETF and ETP provider WisdomTree has announced its intention to close and liquidate nine of its US-listed ETFs.