ETF Securities, one of the world’s leading providers of commodity exchange-traded products, has launched a series of short and leveraged (S&L) products on the London Stock Exchange. The new additions include 18 S&L commodity ETPs and six S&L currency ETPs, with leverage of 3x and 5x respectively. “We believe the additional leverage will first and foremost allow investors to use the currency products to hedge currency risk as well provide additional opportunities to trade on a short-term basis with a competitive total cost of ownership,” said Townsend Lansing, Executive Director – Head of S&L and FX Platforms, ETF Securities (UK).

GoldTrust, a Canadian-domiciled gold bullion investment trust, has partnered with Purpose Investments, a Toronto-based asset manager, in proposing the conversion of the trust into an exchange-traded fund managed by Purpose. The trust has written a letter to current unitholders, citing the enhanced benefits of the ETF format, including improved liquidity through dual Canadian- and US-listings, as well as less significant trading deviations from net asset value (NAV). The move is in response to a hostile takeover bid from Sprott Asset Management.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) this week released research predicting a slow rebalancing of oil prices over the next five years. Meanwhile, in the currency markets, the recent international strength of the US dollar and British pound continued, with the former’s robustness keeping demand and prices for precious metal ETPs low. In other news, long ETPs tracking sugar and cocoa were the week’s two biggest gainers amid upwards revisions of predicted 2016 deficit levels.

ETF Securities, a leading provider of commodity-based exchange-traded products, has released its latest weekly multi-asset research report highlighting trends in commodities markets. The following is a summary of the main moves over the week. A strengthening dollar weighed heavily on ETPs covering gold and energy markets while platinum- and palladium-based products were affected by industry specific events such as financial trouble of major suppliers as well as Volkswagen’s broadening emissions scandal.

WisdomTree, the exchange-traded fund provider behind the Boost ETP product range, has released a report tracking the global asset flows into short and leveraged (S&L) products. “September was a strong month for short & leveraged ETPs as investors took advantage of heightened volatility to position opportunistically or hedge their exposures,” said Viktor Nossek, Director of Research for WisdomTree Europe. “Of particular note were the inflows of over $3.7bn into S&L ETPs tracking US, Japanese and European equities last month.”

Commerzbank’s exchange-traded fund division Comstage has introduced five new ETFs to the Xetra and Borse Frankfurt exchanges. Four of the new funds track long or short positions for a range of maturities in the US Treasury market while the fifth tracks a basket of commodities from the energy as well as the industrial and precious metal sectors.

Societe Generale, the Paris-based global asset manager, has released research shedding light on the interaction between net flows of commodity-linked exchange-traded products and the prices of their underlying commodities. Specifically, it notes that net flows of gold-tracking ETPs have historically been positively correlated with the underlying gold price, further amplifying the commodity’s price movement. On the contrary, net flows in oil-tracking ETPs have historically exhibited a negative correlation to crude oil prices. The model suggests this inverse relationship has allowed oil-tracking ETP flows to lend support to falling oil prices and has provided resistance when prices move upwards.

The growing smart beta industry has received its latest entrant in the form of Connecticut-headquartered ETF issuer Rex Shares. The company plans to sponsor a range of smart beta-focused exchange-traded funds. “The ETF industry has seen tremendous growth, and we believe REX can provide significant value to investors who are looking for efficient portfolio and trading solutions,” said Greg King, Founder and CEO. “We like to think of ourselves as ‘ETF architects’, and are laser-focused on solving specific problems by building better tools for investors.”

Horizons, a leading Canadian exchange-traded fund issuer, has announced the launch of the Horizons Managed Global Opportunities ETF (HGM) on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Actively managed by British Columbia-based Forstrong Global Asset Management, the fund uses flexible tactical allocation among several global asset classes to seek long-term investment returns. Howard Atkinson, President of Horizons ETFs, said: “The potential benefits of Horizons Managed Global Opportunities ETF are that it adds to the global diversification of one’s portfolio, and offers a risk-based approach to managing asset allocation.”

The devaluation of the yuan and concerns about the health of Chinese economy, the world’s second largest, have prompted a severe correction in global markets. Whilst the turmoil has created headaches for most investors, it has brought about some highly profitable trading opportunities for investors in short and leveraged exchange-traded products. Among the biggest beneficiaries of the market rout have been short ETPs linked to equities, oil and industrial metals and leveraged long ETPs linked to volatility and gold, all of which have posted bumper returns.