Lyxor has refreshed several EM-oriented ETFs with lower total expense ratios on six single-country ETFs and new underlying indices for three. The funds, which are listed across the main European exchanges, include products targeting the equity markets of Turkey, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, South Africa, Indonesia and Eastern Europe. MSCI wins the index mandates while investors achieve savings of in excess of $1m per annum at today’s prices.

UniCredit has announced the launch of the UC MSCI European Green Bond EUR UCITS ETF (ECBI GY), a new ETF on Xetra providing exposure to a broadly diversified portfolio of liquid euro-denominated green bonds from European issuers. Linked to the Bloomberg Barclays MSCI European Green Bond Issuer Capped EUR Index, the fund enables sustainability-conscious investors to access bonds that have been issued to finance projects with direct positive environmental outcomes. Antonio Keglevich, Head of Sustainability Bond Origination, UniCredit, commented, “Having the same risk and yield as common bonds, green bonds provide an added value, which exceeds financial aspects.”

DWS has expanded its sector offering with the launch of the Xtrackers USA Banks UCITS ETF (XUFB LN) on the London Stock Exchange. The fund, which comes with a fee of just 12 basis points, is linked to the MSCI USA Banks 20/35 Capped Index, providing exposure to US banks. Amanda Rebello, DWS Head of Passive Distribution, UK and Ireland, commented, “This competitively priced ETF further expands our suite on US sectoral exposures. With the possibility of rising interest rates and inflation in the US providing further tailwinds for the US banking sector, we expect healthy demand for the exposure.”

Research from SSGA and Lyxor suggests the current economic backdrop and recent market turbulence means value ETFs are potentially primed to spring back.

Twenty nine new ETFs or ETF share classes were listed on the London Stock Exchange in October, bringing the total number of new listings (including ETPs) to 299 in the year to date. Issuers active during the month included BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, HANetf, Invesco, JP Morgan, Lyxor, and Tabula.

By Marlene Hassine Konqui, Head of ETF Research at Lyxor Asset Management.

Passive or indexed investments provide low cost access to a very wide range of markets, and there’s next to no risk of them significantly underperforming the indices they track. So does that mean active managers’ days are numbered? We commissioned a research paper from the Lyxor Dauphine Research Academy – a partnership between Lyxor and Paris-Dauphine University’s renowned House of Finance – to try to find out.

The growth of passive investing may actually be a positive for active management and should be viewed more as an opportunity than a threat. That’s the conclusion of the Lyxor Dauphine Research Academy, which investigated the relationship between passive and active management, looking at what role the growing passive space has left for active managers. Marlene Hassine Konqui, Head of ETF Research at Lyxor Asset Management, said: “Both management styles will take a distinct share in the market as they both have a role to play in investors’ portfolio construction”.

State Street Global Advisors has introduced a euro-hedged share class for its SPDR S&P 500 ETF on Deutsche Borse and Borsa Italiana. With a total expense ratio of just 0.12%, the SPDR S&P 500 EUR Hdg UCITS ETF becomes the lowest cost euro-hedged S&P 500 ETF in Europe. Antoine Lesne, head of SPDR ETF Research & Strategy EMEA at State Street, suggests that, henceforth, “European investors may be better off hedging their S&P 500 exposure using a EUR hedged index.”

Lyxor has unveiled a new China ETF – the Lyxor MSCI China UCITS ETF (LCCN LN) – on the London Stock Exchange. The fund tracks the MSCI China Index, capturing the equity performance of large and mid-cap listed Chinese companies across multiple share classes including A shares. The fund comes with a TER of 0.30%, half the price of rival offerings. “We’ve been ruthless on costs recently and we knew we needed to be competitive in this space,” said Adam Laird, Head of ETF Strategy, Northern Europe, at Lyxor ETF.

BlackRock has unveiled a new suite of sustainability-focused equity ETFs on London Stock Exchange. The suite comprises six ETFs across a range of single-country and regional exposures and is aimed at the growing number of investors seeking to align their moral values with long-term investment objectives. The funds track MSCI ESG indices and are being marketed as part of the issuer’s ‘Core’ ETF range of low-cost portfolio building blocks. Stephen Cohen, Head of iShares EMEA at BlackRock, said the ETFs would “play a key role in bringing sustainable investing to the heart of investor portfolios.”