Guggenheim Investments has announced the launch of the Guggenheim BulletShares 2023 High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (BSJN) and the Guggenheim BulletShares 2025 Corporate Bond ETF (BSCP). “Our investment-grade and high yield BulletShares offer investors a creative way to tap into the fixed income market by focusing on securities with a given maturity date,” said William Belden, Managing Director, Head of ETF Business Development at Guggenheim Investments. “The defined-maturity feature continues to be an effective investment strategy for investors looking to save for life events like retirement and college costs amid a volatile economic environment.”

Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management, the asset manager behind the db x-trackers brand of exchange-traded funds, has launched the db x-trackers FTSE 100 Equal Weight UCITS ETF (XFEW LN), providing exposure to an equal-weight version of the blue chip FTSE 100. This is the first ETF to offer access to an equally weighted portfolio of the largest 100 companies by market cap listed on the London Stock Exchange. Equal-weight ETFs based on other major indices, such as the Guggenheim S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF linked to the S&P 500, have existed for over a decade in the US and have attracted considerable assets, making this a long-overdue product for the UK and wider European market.

Guggenheim Investments, a leading US-based exchange-traded fund issuer, has launched the S&P 500 Equal Weight Real Estate ETF (EWRE). According to William Belden, Managing Director of Product Development for Guggenheim Investments: “There are several reasons real estate can be considered an attractive asset class. Real estate securities offer potentially attractive long-term total returns coming from both capital appreciation and higher-than-average income when compared to other equities. They also provide a useful hedge against inflation as rents and values tend to increase when prices do”.

Technology ETFs enjoyed a steady rally last week, culminating in a strong surge on Friday owing to better-than-expected earnings from internet giant Google. The PowerShares EQQQ Nasdaq-100 UCITS ETF (EQQQ), which tracks the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index, was helped to a record high on Friday after gaining 5.1% over the week. Technology stocks – and thus ETFs linked to them – have fared relatively well this year, backed by strong fundamentals, including solid Q1 earnings numbers. With Facebook, Microsoft and Apple all set to deliver solid Q2 numbers, tech ETFs could be poised for a further move higher.

Source, one of Europe’s leading and most innovative exchange-traded fund providers, has crossed the Atlantic and entered the much-larger US ETF market. The firm’s US launch is spearheaded by a management team of ETF veterans led by co-founders Ted Hood, CEO and Peter Thompson, President. They are joined by Executive Chairman Lee Kranefuss, an ETF pioneer and the architect of iShares, and Senior Advisor Richard Goldman, formerly CEO of Rydex and COO of Guggenheim Investments.

Exchange-traded funds listed globally enjoyed another strong month in June, gathering $34.8 billion in net new assets, according to preliminary data from industry consultants ETFGI. Year to date the figure, which includes exchange-traded products, is $126.6 billion, outpacing the previous high of $106.4 billion at this point set in 2012. Combined with positive market performance, net flows pushed assets in the global ETF/ETP industry to a new record high of $2.64 trillion invested across 5,359 ETFs/ETPs, with 10,401 listings, from 219 providers listed on 59 exchanges.

The rise of smart beta products in the exchange-traded funds industry is a credit positive for asset managers with smart-beta focused ETF businesses, according to new report from Moody’s, a credit ratings agency. “The expansion of smart beta will benefit asset managers with businesses centred around smart beta the most,” says Stephen Tu, Vice President, Moody’s. “Invesco’s Powershares franchise, which offers smart beta ETFs, will benefit, as will BlackRock. Guggenheim may also benefit given the majority of its ETFs are based on non-traditional indexing.”

Flows into ETFs and ETPs listed in the United States rebounded in March gathering net inflows of $10.9 billion which, when combined with a small positive market performance in the month, pushed assets in the global ETF/ETP industry to a new record high of $1.73 trillion, according to ETFGI’s latest quarterly global ETF and ETP industry insights report. At the end of Q1 2014, there were 1,568 ETFs/ETPs listed in the United States, from 57 providers on 3 exchanges.

Flows into ETFs and ETPs listed globally rebounded in February with net inflows of $29.0 billion, according to ETFGI, a London-based consultancy. When combined with the positive market performance over the month, the inflows helped push global industry assets under management to a new record high of $2.44 trillion. Dissecting the overall net inflows, ETFGI found that fixed income ETFs/ETPs gathered $16.8 billion – the largest net inflows – followed by equity ETFs/ETPs with $10.2 billion. Commodity ETFs/ETPs saw net inflows of $870 million.

Schwab has become the first major firm to launch a full-service 401(k) program based on low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Steve Anderson, head of Schwab Retirement Plan Services, estimates a 401(k) plan using index ETFs can reduce investment expenses by more than 90 percent compared to a typical 401(k) plan that primarily uses actively managed mutual funds, and by more than 30 percent compared to a 401(k) plan that uses index mutual funds.