Teucrium Trading, a US-based issuer of commodity-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs), recently celebrated the third-year anniversary of its flagship product, the NYSE Arca-listed Teucrium Corn Fund (CORN). Launched in June 2010, the fund was one of the first exchange-listed vehicles to enable a wide variety of investors to gain liquid and transparent access to corn without the use of a futures account.

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.

First Trust, a global provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), has launched an actively managed ETF providing investors with access to a managed futures strategy. The fund, the First Trust Morningstar Managed Futures Strategy ETF (FMF), which has been listed on the NYSE Arca, seeks to provide investors with positive returns and to exceed the performance of the Morningstar Diversified Futures Index, the fund’s benchmark.

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?!

UBS Global Asset Management has listed a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) on the London Stock Exchange offering exposure to a highly diversified portfolio of developed market equities. Linked to the MSCI World Index, one of the most commonly used benchmarks for global equity funds, the newly launched UBS-ETF MSCI World (USD) “A” (UC55) tracks the performance of large and mid-cap stocks across 23 developed markets countries.

UBS Global Asset Management has launched a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) on the London Stock Exchange. The fund, the UBS-ETF CMCI Composite, offers diversified exposure to the commodities asset class via a widely diversified and dynamic commodities index. Based on the UBS Bloomberg Constant Maturity Commodity Index (CMCI) Composite, an index developed by UBS in cooperation with Bloomberg, the fund delivers access to 28 commodity futures contracts covering the energy, industrial metals, precious metals, agriculture and livestock sectors.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and the European Banking Authority (EBA) have published a series of principles for improving the calculation of key benchmark indices. The principles, which relate to index users, administrators, calculation agents, publishers and data submitters, address problems identified with benchmark-setting processes and are intended to instil market confidence and guarantee benchmark accuracy and integrity. However, while the principles have broadly been accepted by industry participants, some feel they fall short in key areas.

Exchange-traded funds (ETF) perform strongly in terms of transparency and cost effectiveness, and are expected to become increasingly important to both institutional and private investors, according to a specialist committee on ETFs at the Swiss Funds Association (SFA). The comments were made at a recent media conference held by the SFA in Zurich and come after the publication of data showing that ETFs account for a steadily growing share of the fund volume booked in Switzerland.

Vanguard has expanded its European suite of low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with the launch of four new funds on the London Stock Exchange. The new ETFs complement the firm’s existing London-listed line-up, which debuted in May 2012. Axel Lomholt, Vanguard’s Head of International Product Development, said: “In the US, Vanguard has been very successful in this area, gathering nearly $290 billion of assets since its first ETF launch in 2001. We think that the same low-cost, straightforward approach will prove equally popular in Europe”.

By David Stevenson – Despite all the grim news surrounding gold, I find myself looking afresh at gold mining equity funds and wondering whether now is the time to start quietly increasing my exposure. In essence, investors face two equally dismal choices. Do they focus on investing with an active fund manager who will “know” which miners to back or do they invest in a passive ETF? The second equally lethal choice is whether they should back larger lower-cost miners or junior miners where the rewards could be huge?