BNP Paribas has launched a new ETF offering exposure to the European high yield credit market while hedging against market downturns through the use of a protective put strategy.

Automated wealth management company Moneyfarm has announced it is to introduce charges to all investors, abandoning its previous scheme where portfolios below £10,000 or above £1 million in invested assets were exempt from fees. The firm said it has initiated the new pricing structure to bring the firm in line with other robo-advisers.

FTSE Russell is celebrating 25 years since the launch of the FTSE 250 Index on 12 October 1992. The first ETF to track the index was launched 13 years ago. Since then, strong performance and the index’s role as a proxy for the health of the UK economy has seen ETF assets linked to the mid-cap index rise to over £1.5 billion.

ETF and index investing “supports vibrant capital markets”, argues BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, in a research paper released in response to some commentators’ warnings about the perils of passive products, including ETFs.

 J.P. Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM) has unveiled a pair of actively managed hedge fund ETFs to be listed on the London Stock Exchange. The two funds, the JPM Equity Long-Short UCITS ETF and the JPM Managed Futures UCITS ETF, will be the firm’s first ETFs to be rolled out in Europe. Commenting on the launch, Bryon Lake, international head of ETFs, JPMAM, said: “Providing investors with institutional-quality hedge fund strategies in a cost-efficient, liquid and tradeable ETF wrapper should help to advance the democratisation of hedge fund investing.”

Tradeweb has reported that the end of September marked the third busiest quarter for its European-listed ETF marketplace since its launch in October 2012. Adriano Pace, managing director for equity derivatives at Tradeweb, said the performance reflects the efficiencies of ‘Request For Quote’ (RFQ) trading as the ETF industry is bracing itself for the new regulatory landscape under MiFID II.

Aviva has announced it is to buy a majority shareholding in robo-advisor Wealthify. The digital investment platform was launched in April 2016 and uses algorithms to invest customers money in passive products including iShares ETFs from BlackRock. Richard Theo, co-founder and CEO of Wealthify said Aviva’s investment “reflects a clear shift in market demand for high-quality, technology-enabled financial services solutions like Wealthify”.

Invesco, the asset manager behind the PowerShares brand of ETFs, has agreed a deal to acquire Guggenheim Investments’ ETF business for $1.2 billion in cash. The business includes around $37 billion of assets under management, comprising ETFs such as the $13.8 billion Guggenheim S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) and the popular BulletShares suite of defined-maturity bond ETFs. Martin L. Flanagan, president and CEO of Invesco, said: “Guggenheim Investments’ ETF business is highly complementary to Invesco’s, and will enable us to provide one of the industry’s most comprehensive and innovative ranges of smart beta ETFs.”

Lyxor has added three new euro-denominated, accumulating share classes for ETFs listed on Deutsche Börse’s Xetra and Frankfurt exchanges. The ETFs offer exposure to various market-capitalisation segments of the eurozone and European equity markets.

Twelve new ETFs were listed on London Stock Exchange in August 2017, bringing the number of new listings year-to-date to 89. ETF issuers bringing new funds to market in London during August included First Trust, BlackRock, Deutsche Asset Management, Source and UBS.