Queens’ College, Cambridge has allocated part of its £55m global equity investment exposure to a self-managed portfolio constructed using equity sector ETFs, specifically to exclude extractive and carbon-intensive industries. The move is part of a package of measures developed by specialist consultant ElstonETF to enable Queens’ to respond to the concerns of the carbon divestment lobby without losing sight of primary investment objectives.

Activity on the Tradeweb’s European ETF marketplace showed no signs of slowing down in June, as notional volume surpassed €23 billion for the second time on record. Adriano Pace, head of equities (Europe) at Tradeweb, said, “Institutional trading of ETFs continues to grow on Tradeweb, as demonstrated by the 101% increase in European ETF average daily volumes year-over-year.”

Invesco has cross-listed the Invesco AT1 Capital Bond UCITS ETF and its euro-hedged share class on Borsa Italiana under the tickers AT1 IM and XAT1 IM respectively.

JP Morgan Asset Management has added to its presence in Switzerland with the cross-listing of a further three ETFs on SIX Swiss Exchange. The new listings take the number of JP Morgan ETFs on the Zurich exchange to seven. The listings comprise two short-term bond strategies (one passive, one active) and an active long-short equity hedge fund-style product.

Seven issuers were active on London Stock Exchange in June, listing seventeen new ETFs or ETF share classes, bringing the total number of new listings (including ETPs) to 188 year-to-date. Lida Eslami, Head of London ETP Business Development, London Stock Exchange, commented: “We continue to see growing demand for ETPs both in terms of issuance and volumes traded in the first half of the year.”

By PIMCO’s Nicola Mai, portfolio manager, sovereign credit analyst and Andrew Bosomworth, head of portfolio management, Germany.

Over the next few years, financial markets could be set for a series of “Rude Awakenings”. The global economy is transitioning out of a post-crisis period characterized by remarkable stability, and the changes ahead could be jarring for investors. In Europe, this forecast appears to be unfolding already.

By Stephen Cohen, head of iShares EMEA at BlackRock.

With post-trade transparency, prior assumptions around higher ETF trading volumes have met expectations, to the benefit and comfort of many investors. MiFID II and greater cost sensitivity broadly have also begun accelerating the shift towards fee-based advisory models, generating more attention on ETFs from distributors – the Italian market is an interesting case in point.

China Post Global has launched the Market Access Markit iBoxx EUR Contingent Convertible Liquid Developed Market AT1 Index UCITS ETF on LSE, Euronext Amsterdam and SIX Swiss Exchange. “This is an exciting new ETF for which we’re seeing considerable demand from institutional investors” said Danny Dolan, MD of China Post Global (UK).

Euronext has marked the thirtieth anniversary of the French bellwether equity index – the CAC 40. The index is the most widely followed guage of the performance of French blue-chip stocks and the underlying reference for more than €6 billion worth of ETFs.

Fixed income ETFs are expected to take a bigger share of overall ETF inflows, according to research from new European ETF provider Tabula Investment Management. The firm believes such growth could result in a large number of me-too fixed income ETFs, all offering similar sorts of exposure. “The palpable opportunity in this market lies in developing new products that deliver precise exposure and address the specific needs of fixed income investors,” said MJ Lytle, chief executive at Tabula.