Gold bugs and commodity bulls will be delighted at the return of two long-established commodity ETFs – the Market Access Rogers International Commodity Index UCITS ETF (RICI LN) and the Market Access NYSE Arca Gold BUGS Index UCITS ETF (GOLB LN) – to the London Stock Exchange.

State Street Global Advisors has launched a new currency-hedged share class for the SPDR Thomson Reuters Global Convertible Bond UCITS ETF. The new listing minimizes the exchange rate risk between the fund’s underlying currency exposures and the euro.

Thomson Reuters has partnered with Affinity to launch the Thomson Reuters StarMine Affinity World Leaders Index. Stephan Flagel, global head of benchmarks and indices at Thomson Reuters commented: “Today’s global equity investors need indices that not only provide greater access to global markets, and related sub-sectors, but also provide a greater level of transparency.”

Assets under management (AUM) of ETFs domiciled in Europe reached €622 billion at the end of October, up from €601bn the previous month, according to Thomson Reuters. October saw the addition of €6.6bn in net new assets, meaning the majority of the €20.9bn AUM gain was due to the performance of underlying markets.

Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX) and Thomson Reuters have agreed to launch a suite of co-branded commodity indices in India. The indices will track the performance of commodity derivatives listed on MCX and will be created and maintained by Thomson Reuters.

Thomson Reuters, in partnership with boutique index provider S-Network Global Indexes, has announced changes to the methodology underlying its corporate responsibility ratings and index suite. The range also been rebranded the Thomson Reuters/S-Network ESG Best Practices Ratings & Indices to better reflect the change.

BlackRock Inc, the world’s biggest asset manager, on Wednesday reported double-digit profit gains as investors plowed money into lower-cost index funds, but the company’s share price slipped as revenue fell short of analysts’ expectations.

Research from Thomson Reuters Lipper found that, across 107 global asset class classifications, 75 of the categories displayed a directional divergence in net flows between active mutual funds and ETFs listed in Europe. According to Lipper, the figures showed that ETFs are gaining a greater relative share of assets in categories covering efficient markets while investors are still preferring active funds over ETFs where market inefficiencies present opportunities.

European investors are piling into exchange-traded funds, favouring those that mimic active fund managers, in a market where traditional trading relationships between assets are breaking down. Investment in ETFs, securities which track an index or basket of assets, rose to more than half a trillion euros at the end of last year, a record. A combination of low costs and flexibility kept investors hooked even though this break-down of so-called correlations should favour actively-managed mutual funds.

Europe-listed US equity ETFs raised €0.9bn of net inflows in December, thanks predominantly to strong demand for the iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF (LON: CSPX) which by itself generated net gatherings of €0.6bn. Despite several predictions of a drop in US markets following Trump’s election, the equity rally has largely continued with Trump’s anti-regulation rhetoric turning fear to optimism and encouraging investors back into the market.