ETF investors may be interested in research from S&P Dow Jones Indices, which broadly shows that volatility is diminishing across countries and asset classes, suggesting a more stable investment outlook. Tim Edwards, Senior Director of Index Investment Strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices, commented: “In the last four weeks, another Greek crisis has come and been duly kicked down the road for a few more months; meanwhile the popping sounds emanating from China’s equity markets appear to have been nipped in the bud by the local authorities.”

BlackRock has announced the launch of the iShares Convertible Bond ETF (ICVT), providing exposure to US dollar-denominated convertible bonds. The ETF has been listed on BATS Exchange and seeks to track the performance of the Barclays US Convertibles Cash Pay Bond > 250m Index. The fund captures the benefits of convertible bond investing in a cost-efficient manner and will appeal to investors looking to benefit from potential upside gains in equity markets while wanting to limit the downside risk of investing in equities.

S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI), one of the world’s leading index providers, estimates that $3.05 trillion is now directly invested in products based upon their equity and fixed income indices, with recent growth being powered by ETFs. Alex Matturri, CEO of S&P DJI, commented: “Investor interest in index products based upon S&P DJI indices continues to grow and be met by our leading family of US stock market indices and increasingly by our growing family of fixed income indices. While market cap-weighted indices remain at the core of our offerings, we are now seeing strong growth in smart beta-based index strategies amongst all of our client segments throughout the world.”

S&P Dow Jones Indices has announced an aggressive plan to exponentially grow its fixed income index business in anticipation of growing global demand for bond indices for use in both passive investment strategies, such as ETFs, and as benchmarks for actively managed portfolios. In total, the new S&P DJI fixed income indices will cover over 20,000 individual securities with the ultimate goal of launching thousands of maturity and sector based indices. S&P DJI already publishes over 500 fixed income indices globally covering municipals, preferreds, corporates, CDS, and senior loans amongst others, and is the third largest provider of fixed income indices for the global ETF market.

MSCI, a leading index provider to the exchange-traded funds industry, has released data highlighting the continuing strength of its brand within the ETF market. According to the provider, ETF investors directed a larger proportion of new funds into ETFs based on its indices than any other index provider during the first six months of 2014. The provider also noted that ETF issuers launched more new funds based on its indices than those of any other provider. Baer Pettit, Managing Director and Global Head of MSCI’s index business, said: “We are delighted with these numbers which are further evidence of MSCI’s strength in the ETF market”.

S&P Dow Jones Indices, one of the world’s leading providers of indices to ETFs, has unveiled the S&P Quality Indices, a new family of indices tracking “high quality” stocks. The indices are designed to measure the performance of stocks which score well on three fundamental measures of quality: return on equity, accruals ratio and financial leverage ratio. Vinit Srivastava, Senior Director of Strategy Indices at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said: “The launch of the S&P Quality Index family provides investors with a factor-based benchmark that captures the characteristics of high quality companies.”

S&P Dow Jones Indices (SPDJI), a leading provider of indices to the exchange-traded funds industry, has extended its emerging markets line-up with the launch of fourteen new indices measuring the performance of African equity markets. The launch takes the total number of Africa-focused indices launched by SPDJI this year to 29. All the indices have been designed for a range of uses, including as underlying references for passive investment products such as ETFs, as benchmarks for actively managed funds and as general indicators of broad equity market performance.

The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has confirmed that is evaluating the merits of a potential bid for Russell Investments. LSEG is the owner of FTSE Group, a leading index provider, and is understood to be interested in acquiring Russell primarily for Russell Indexes, the company’s vast indexing business. Russell Indexes is one of the leading providers of indices to the fast-growing exchange-traded funds industry, with more than $150 billion in assets invested in Russell-linked ETFs.

ETF Securities, the exchange-traded products provider and commodities specialist, has entered the competitive world of financial market indexing with the launch of ETFS Indices. Led by Dan Raab, the unit will design and publish liquid and replicable futures-based indices. ETFS Indices’ debut line-up includes two enhanced commodity long-only indices and two commodity long/short indices. The indices are formulated with a goal of having low correlations to traditional asset classes while providing relatively strong reward vs. risk ratios.

Commodities moved back into favour in the first quarter of 2014, according to data from ETF Securities, a leading provider of commodity-focused exchange-traded products (ETPs). Nicholas Brooks, Head of research and investment strategy at ETF Securities, said: “Gold ETPs moved strongly back into favour in February and March as investors revised down their highly bullish US growth assumptions and revised up the global risk outlook. Broad commodity ETPs also saw a turn in sentiment, with asset allocators rotating into the asset class as an alternative to overstretched developed market equities.”