Turkish equity ETFs have experienced increased volatility in the second half of the year as the Turkish lira has plummeted in value, the government fended off a military coup over the summer, and the economy suffered its first year-on-year contraction since 2009. The Turkish Borsa Istanbul 100 Index fell 13.3% in the seven days after the coup until 22 July. While the economy was previously heralded as a leading emerging markets performer, these developments have raised questions as to the suitability of Turkish exposures in investors’ portfolios.

Exchange-traded funds tracking Brazilian equities have soared in 2016 with the market on track to be the best performing asset category in 2016, despite ongoing political uncertainty in the country which has recently culminated in the impeachment of the country’s president Dilma Rousseff. The MSCI Brazil is up 32.7% year-to-date (1 September 2016) in local currency terms, contributing to significant gains for ETFs from iShares, Amundi, HSBC and db X-trackers which track the index.

Edinburgh-based pensions, insurance and investment company Aegon UK, part of the Dutch-owned group, has announced its acquisition of Cofunds, a leading UK investment platform, for £140m. Aegon has stated its intention to ‘enhance’ the platform through offering a wider choice of investments, which includes, for the first time, exchange-traded funds (ETFs). With £77.5bn of assets on the platform, the accession of ETFs is likely to result in greater adoption of ETFs among independent financial advisors (IFAs) who use the platform, many of whom have complained at the lack of access to ETFs.

Fidelity FundsNetwork, a UK-based investment platform, has added 16 new exchange-traded products to its offering, bringing the total number of ETPs available to 77. The products are available to advisory firms in various wrappers via Fidelity’s integrated online platform.

iShares, the world’s largest provider of exchange-traded funds, has reduced the charges on two of its S&P 500 ETFs. The iShares S&P 500 UCITS ETF (Acc) (SACC) and the net total return iShares S&P 500 – B UCITS ETF (Acc) (CSP1), both of which are income-accruing funds, now come with total expense ratios (TERs) of just 0.07%, down from 0.15%. Following these price changes, the two products are currently the cheapest physically replicated ETFs in the UK, pipping similar products from Vanguard and HSBC, which come with TERs of 0.09%.

Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM) has rolled out two new exchange-traded funds (ETFs) providing exposure to Nordic and Turkish equity markets. Kai Bald, Head of Public Distribution for Passive Investments at DeAWM, commented: “The Nordic ETF will be welcomed by those investors keen to focus on, or diversify in favour of, this particular part of the continent, which has performed strongly over the past year. The Turkey ETF meanwhile brings even greater choice to our already expansive emerging markets range.”

HSBC has announced the launch of the HSBC MSCI AC Far East Ex Japan UCITS ETF (HMAD) on the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse. The fund is designed to replicate the performance of the MSCI AC Far East Ex Japan Index, a market capitalisation-weighted index that tracks the performance of large and mid-cap companies across both emerging and developed Far East Asia.

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.”

AVANA Invest, a Munich-based investment manager specialising in exchange-traded fund (ETF) portfolios, has listed its first ETF: the AVANA Emerging Market Equity UCITS ETF Feeder. The fund, which has an actively managed component, has been listed on the Deutsche Börse (Xetra) and provides exposure to emerging market equities.

By David Stevenson – This week I have a small piece of mid-summer madness. Now that all those sensible people have quite rightly vanished from the office, I’m fairly sure that only the most clinically insane are left staring at their computers (like me), hunting down new investment ideas. If you are indeed one of these bemused loners, may I suggest a very contrarian call – Turkish equities?!