Fixed income exchange-traded products drew in $17.6 billion in net inflows during June, marking the best month of flows for the asset class this year, according to the most recent BlackRock ETP Landscape Report.

Tim Buckley, previously chief investment officer of Vanguard, has been elected by the board as the company’s new chief executive officer, effective from 1 January 2018. Buckley will succeed Bill McNabb to become the fourth CEO in the firm’s history.

China International Capital Corporation (CICC) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 50.1% majority stake in Krane Funds Advisors (KraneShares), a US asset management firm best known for its China focused ETFs. Mingjian Bi, acting chairman and CEO of CICC, said: “We are excited to have this opportunity to significantly grow KraneShares and the CICC business in the United States and globally.”

By Jodie Gunzberg, head of commodities indices at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Commodities just had their worst start in seven years.  The S&P GSCI Total Return Index lost 10.2% year-to-date (YTD) ending 30 June 2017, logging its worst first half performance since the first six months of 2010 when it lost 11.2%.

Trading activity on the Tradeweb European-listed ETF marketplace amounted to €12.15 billion in June, significantly lower than the record €17.74bn recorded the month before. June marked the end of the platform’s second strongest quarter on record however, with total activity amounting to €43.65bn over the course of the last three months.

Deutsche Asset Management has announced it is offering three new ETFs on Schwab ETF OneSource, the program that provides investors and advisors with access to commission-free ETFs. The funds provide exposure to US high yield corporate bonds, as well as emerging market and Japanese equities. Fiona Bassett, head of passive asset management in the Americas for Deutsche AM, said: “Investors now have greater access to a broader selection of our unique strategies through the Deutsche X-trackers ETFs, including high yield, comprehensive factor and equity.”

S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) has published its Q2 factor indices dashboard for Europe, noting the second quarter performance of its range of factor indices derived from the broad market S&P Europe 350 Index. The firm reports that the quarter was positive for European equities in general, most factors still outperformed the broad market over this period, and Quality was the best performing strategy.

Investment research firm Morningstar has published the latest instalment of its ETF Managed Portfolios Landscape Report. The report, which covers the first quarter of 2017 and tracks 950 strategies from 169 US-based firms, found that total assets in these strategies increased a whopping 17.6% over this period to $99.7 billion.

First Asset has launched the First Asset US TrendLeaders Index ETF (SID) on the Toronto Stock Exchange, offering exposure to a portfolio of US equities selected due to the strength of their recent price trends.

Three months ago, online trading firm IG joined the digital wealth management industry with the launch of IG Smart Portfolios, a range of risk managed investment portfolios in partnership with BlackRock built exclusively with iShares ETFs.