Exo Investing, a London-based digital wealth manager, has officially opened its doors to business, offering private investors access to sophisticated artificial-intelligence-powered ETF portfolios for a low online fee. Lennart Asshoff, CEO of Exo Investing, said, “Exo is all about democratising access to sophisticated investment technology, using the latest advances in AI and risk management technology to break down the barriers to wealth and open the door to a new category of investing for as many people as possible.”

By Joe Foster, portfolio manager and strategist, VanEck.

Lack of investor interest and misguided cost concerns have been fuelling underperformance in gold equity for some time but perhaps the market is now reaching a turning point.

VanEck Europe has launched the VanEck Vectors Global Mining UCITS ETF (GDIG LN) on the London Stock Exchange, providing access to firms around the world which are operating in the mining industry. The new offering complements the firm’s existing portfolio of ETFs which includes funds tracking the global gold mining sector.

Solactive and UBS have launched the Solactive UBS Development Bank Bond Indices, a family of 36 total return indices tracking the performance of high-grade debt issued by the World Bank and other development banks. Steffen Scheuble, CEO of Solactive, said the indices “play a critical role in attracting capital to sustainable development.”

Pacer ETFs has accumulated $2 billion in assets under management less than three years since the launch of its first ETF. “Our rapid growth rate is due, in part, to our unique series of ETFs,” said Sean O’Hara, president of Pacer ETF Distributors. “Reaching this milestone is possible due to the hard work and dedication of our team and our partners at S&P, Nasdaq, FTSE Russell, US Bank and Cboe.”

State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) has completed the migration of its entire suite of Irish-domiciled SPDR ETFs to Euroclear’s international issuance structure. Euroclear’s model provides one place of settlement—an international central securities depository (ICSD) – bringing increased efficiency to a process that had previously only been supported by fragmented domestic market practices across Europe.

BlackRock has cross-listed three iShares ETFs onto Xetra. The new listings, which are not related, are traded in euros and offer access to global small-cap equities, companies operating in the automation and robotics industry, and a broadly diversified portfolio of commodity futures contracts.

Mirae Asset Global Investments and CSOP Asset Management are closing some of their leveraged and inverse ETP products currently listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The number of ETFs and ETPs listed on London Stock Exchange rose significantly in March, with 27 new ETFs and 76 ETPs added during the month. New listings on the exchange were provided by VanEck, UBS, Societe Generale, BlackRock, Lyxor and Deutsche Asset Management.

Investment research firm Morningstar has published the latest instalment of its ETF Managed Portfolios Landscape Report. The report, which covers the fourth-quarter of 2017, found that total AUM in the ETF managed portfolios segment increased by 7.0%, to $123.0 billion. Charles Schwab Investment Advisory holds the top spot with over $12.4bn in AUM across 15 strategies.