Janus Henderson has announced plans to close and liquidate two of its NYSE-listed equity ETFs: the Janus Velocity Tail Risk Hedged Large Cap ETF (TRSK US) and Janus Velocity Volatility Hedged Large Cap ETF (SPXH US).

This week’s spike in US equity market volatility led to the temporary suspension of trading in three US-listed inverse VIX exchange-traded products and the decision from Credit Suisse to close its VelocityShares Daily Inverse VIX Short-Term ETN (XIV).

VelocityShares, the inverse and leveraged ETF brand of Janus Henderson Group, has launched a suite of ten quadruple-leveraged currency ETPs on NYSE Arca. Nick Cherney, senior vice president and head of ETPs for Janus Henderson, said, “This launch further demonstrates our dedication to developing sophisticated ETPs for institutional investors.”

Oil traders for the last two weeks have shrugged off reports that U.S. stockpiles are brimming at their largest levels ever recorded, as the market continues to bet that crude prices will climb higher. Oil has maintained its buoyancy because the market is betting that cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will largely rebalance the oil market, despite continued production increases from shale formations in the United States.

Despite testing market conditions, the global ETF/ETP industry pulled in net inflows of $13.1 billion in January 2016, according to preliminary data from industry consultants ETFGI. The industry has now totted up an impressive 24 consecutive months of net inflows. Fixed income was the best performing ETF category in January, gathering net inflows of $12.5bn, followed by commodities with $3.4bn. Equity ETFs/ETPs experienced the largest net outflows, with $8.5bn being withdrawn from such products. At the issuer level, Nomura AM gathered the largest net inflows in January with $4.2bn, followed by Vanguard and VelocityShares.

Janus Capital Group, a global investment manager, has announced that it has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for two innovative smart beta exchange-traded funds, based, in part, on their pre-existing small- and mid-cap growth strategies. “These ETFs are the result of a great opportunity to marry Janus’s expertise as a fundamental manager in the small-cap arena, with our robust quantitative abilities in exchange traded products. After extensive development work we look forward to offering these innovative ETFs,” said Nick Cherney, Senior Vice President, Head of Exchange Traded Products of Janus Capital Group.

By David Stevenson – Apologies for sounding like a broken record, but I want to return yet again to the hoary old subject of smart beta and the voguish hunt for minimal volatility. Lyxor’s recent cross-listing of the Lyxor UCITS ETF MSCI World Risk Weighted (WDRL) on the London Stock Exchange has prompted me to ascertain whether the first wave of low volatility ETFs (I include minimum volatility and minimum variance ETFs in this grouping) has actually delivered on their promise.

FTSE, a leading global index provider, has unveiled a suite of indices designed to track the performance of baskets of securities weighted so that each security contributes equally to overall portfolio risk. Called the FTSE Global Equal Risk Contribution (ERC) Index Series, the new indices fit within FTSE’s range of alternative indices (often dubbed ‘smart beta’), which break the relationship between market capitalisation and index weight.

Boost, an independent provider of exchange-traded products, has countered criticism of leveraged and inverse exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from the US Federal Reserve. In a statement, the London-based firm, which specialises in leveraged and inverse products, said there was need for “more clarity and reasoned debate around the conclusions” of a recent Fed report entitled: Are Leveraged and Inverse ETFs the New Portfolio Insurers?

VelocityShares, a US-based developer of exchange-traded products, has launched the VelocityShares Equal Risk Weighted Large Cap ETF (ERW), an innovative new fund providing an alternative to traditional low volatility and market cap-weighted equity ETFs. Nick Cherney, Chief Investment Officer and Co-founder of VelocityShares, said: “Investors are interested in low volatility equity portfolios, and equal risk weighting represents an important step forward as a means of intelligently allocating to low volatility stocks.”