Canadian investment manager First Asset has unveiled the First Asset Global Financial Sector ETF (FSF) following its conversion from a closed-end fund called the First Asset Hamilton Capital European Bank Fund. The fund is composed primarily of global financial services firms across developed and emerging markets and seeks total return from long-term capital appreciation and regular dividend income. Barry Gordon, President and CEO of First Asset, said in a statement: “FSF represents an exciting opportunity to combine the strengths of the Signature Global Asset Management team and First Asset. FSF is an actively managed ETF that delivers to investors the benefits of ETFs, including tax efficiency, liquidity, and low cost.”

China has launched a new gold benchmark on the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) this week in a move that could see it have control over pricing the yellow metal. The launch is intended to provide a tradable and reliable RMB-denominated Gold Benchmark Price for the gold market. China is the largest producer and consumer of gold in the world. SGE has ranked as the world’s largest physical gold exchange for nine consecutive years. Deputy Governor of the People’s Bank of China, Pan Gongsheng commented on Tuesday that the launch of the benchmark was a key initiative of innovation and opening-up of China’s financial market leaning in the global economic integration.

ETF Securities and Lombard Odier Investment Managers have cross-listed four fundamentally weighted fixed income exchange-traded funds on Borsa Italiana. This is the first time that smart beta bond exposure has been available to Italian investors in an ETF wrapper. Massimo Siano, Head of Southern Europe, ETF Securities, said: “We’re very pleased to be listing these ETFs on the Borsa Italiana. Italy is an important growth market for us and we are fully committed to making our products accessible to all investor types.” The co-branded ETFs were launched on the London and Swiss stock exchanges last year, and have collectively amassed over $225m in AUM.

Deutsche Börse has launched a new service which allows for an optimized on-exchange execution of large-sized ETF orders. Called Xetra Quote Request, the service exploits the exchange group’s complete service chain – from trading, clearing and settlement to trade reporting and market data dissemination – to reduce settlement and counterparty risks and ensure compliance with best execution requirements for large orders. Martin Reck, Managing Director, Cash Market, at Deutsche Börse, said the initiative would improve the efficiency of on-exchange trading in ETFs.

S&P Dow Jones Indices has partnered with sustainable investing specialist RobecoSAM to launch a new index family targeting positive environmental, social and corporate governance exposures on a global and regional scale. The S&P ESG Index Series is based on existing S&P Indices. The indices measure the performance of companies in their respective underlying index with a weighting scheme based on ESG factor scores derived from RobecoSAM’s annual Corporate Sustainability Assessment. Banerjee, Managing Director, Head of Product Management at SPDJI, said in a statement: “Sustainability issues can be sources of substantial risks but equally, substantial opportunities.”

First Trust, a US-based provider of exchange-traded funds, has launched three new ETFs on the Nasdaq Exchange. The First Trust RiverFront Dynamic Europe ETF (RFEU), First Trust RiverFront Dynamic Asia Pacific ETF (RFAP), and First Trust RiverFront Dynamic Developed International ETF (RFDI) are all managed by asset manager RiverFront Investment Group. Chris Konstantinos, RiverFront’s Director of International Portfolio Management, commented: “We believe stocks across the developed world have pulled back to attractive valuations and that investors have underestimated the positive impact that lower oil prices and continued aggressive monetary policy will have on developed international economies.”

High yield corporate bond exchange-traded funds have continued to gain favour among investors, according to credit rating agency Fitch. The trading ratio of high yield ETF shares to high yield bonds reached a record high of 42% on 11 December 2015, and subsequently reached above 20% on several days during the first two months of 2016. Robert Grossman, Managing Director, Macro Credit Research at Fitch, commented: “This is a striking shift in the market considering high yield ETF assets were just $34bn at the end of February–much lower than the $1.2tn of high yield bonds outstanding.” ETFs offer investors superior liquidity benefits compared to actual high yield bonds, a feature that may be valuable to the investor during periods of market stress and falling bond prices.

MSCI, a leading index provider to the exchange-traded funds industry, has launched the MSCI ESG Sustainable Impact Metrics (provided by MSCI ESG Research). This new framework, which builds from the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in September 2015, may be used to better align the exposure of future investment products such as ETFs to public companies whose products and services help to address major environmental, social and governance challenges. Launched in conjunction with the new metrics, the MSCI ACWI Sustainable Impact Index is the company’s first index to harness the new framework. To be eligible for inclusion in the index, companies must generate at least 50% of their sales from activities that promote the achievement of at least one of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Assets in European listed exchange-traded funds and exchange-traded products hit a record high of $522bn in the first three months of the year, according to data from consultancy ETFGI. The figure helped boost global ETF/ETP assets return above the $3tn mark for only the second time, having first done so at the end of May last year. Net new assets in March hit $45.3bn globally marking the 26th consecutive month of net inflows. In Europe, the largest portion of investor money [$6.18bn] went into fixed income and commodities [$1.10bn]. However, these figures were offset by outflows from equity ETFs/ETPs of $2.29bn.

Volatility ripped through stock markets in the first two months of the year and despite recovering their losses towards the end of March and into April, equities still look as though they’re in for a rocky ride as investors react to geopolitics, macro events and central bank policies. Convergex said of equities in a research note put out in early April, that “while future performance remains unclear… history tells us that 2016 will likely be a big year–one way or the other.” Rebecca Hampson, Associate Editor at ETF Strategy, talks to three ETF investors to get their views on equities in 2016.