Pimco and Source have announced that the Pimco EM Advantage Local Bond Index Source ETF is now available in GBP on the London Stock Exchange. The fund, which was previously tradable in USD only, is linked to the innovative Pimco EM Advantage Local Currency Bond Index. The Pimco EM Advantage Local Currency Bond Index tracks the performance of a GDP-weighted basket of locally-denominated government debt and currencies of emerging market countries. The index currently offers exposure to 12 emerging market countries.

Analysis from ETFGI, a London-based consultancy, has found that some 3,367 institutional investors across 50 countries reported holdings in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and/or exchange-traded products (ETPs) in 2012, up 92% from 2005. Bank of America Merrill Lynch topped the list with more than $50 billion in ETF holdings.

Euroclear Finland and Euroclear Sweden, the central securities depositories for the Finnish and Swedish markets, have made actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) available for settlement and custody in their book-entry systems. The Euroclear initiative coincides with the launch from Nordea of the region’s first actively managed ETFs on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm and Nasdaq OMX Helsinki exchanges.

Nordea, Northern Europe’s largest financial services company, has introduced the Nordic region’s first actively managed exchange-traded funds: the Nordea Global Emerging Market Equities UCITS ETF and the Nordea Stable Equities UCITS ETF. The funds have been listed in Sweden and Finland on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm and Nasdaq OMX Helsinki exchanges.

Commodity ETFs rallied sharply higher on Wednesday after the US Federal Reserve said it would leave its quantitative easing programme unchanged, a policy largely seen as supporting commodity prices. Most risk assets reacted positively to the announcement, but gold and oil, in particular, experienced a strong bounce, with the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), the world’s largest gold ETF, adding 4.5% and the United States Oil Fund (USO), the word’s largest oil ETF, adding 2.4%.

FTSE, a leading global index provider, has unveiled a suite of indices designed to track the performance of baskets of securities weighted so that each security contributes equally to overall portfolio risk. Called the FTSE Global Equal Risk Contribution (ERC) Index Series, the new indices fit within FTSE’s range of alternative indices (often dubbed ‘smart beta’), which break the relationship between market capitalisation and index weight.

Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM), the investment management division of Deutsche Bank, has rolled out eight new fixed income ETFs this month in an assertive effort to position itself as a leading European provider in the fixed income space. Simon Klein, DeAWM’s Head of Exchange Traded Product Sales, EMEA and Asia, said: “The development of the fixed income space is still nascent, but we’re well placed to be a leading provider of fixed income ETFs as this area of the market develops.”

Lyxor has listed a further 17 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), offering a mix of developed and emerging markets equity exposures. Commenting on the launch, Arnaud Llinas, Global Head of ETFs and Indexing at Lyxor, said: “These ETFs have been constructed to meet the requirements our clients have come to expect in line with our Quality Charter, and have been constructed specifically to meet the standards of high liquidity and low tracking error that we seek to maintain across our entire ETF range.”

By David Stevenson – Over the last decade commodity trackers have literally come from nowhere to emerge as the next big thing in the world of alternative assets. But that huge success has also thrust the humble commodity index into the spotlight – many investors still struggle to understand why the main index families are so radically different or how futures-based structures can cope with the long-term effect of the roll yield. That debate has prompted many investors to demand better indices, and a small but hardy bunch of ETP pioneers has reacted by dabbling around with what are in effect next-generation indices.

Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM), the investment management division of Deutsche Bank, has introduced a euro-hedged share class for its db X-trackers MSCI World Index UCITS ETF. The new EUR-hedged share class, which has been listed on the Deutsche Börse, follows the launch earlier this month on the London Stock Exchange of a USD-hedged share class for the db X-trackers MSCI Japan Index UCITS ETF.