Andy O'Rourke says the nuances of intraday trading and the impact of compounding in leveraged ETFs need to be fully understood.

 

Just four ETF companies took in more net new cash in November than DirexionShares. Its Large Cap Bull 3X Shares have been among the most heavily traded NYSE Arca stocks lately. IU.com's Eric Rosenbaum recently spoke with Direxion Funds' marketing director Andy O'Rourke about the rapid rise to ETF prominence and how the fund company can keep the momentum up.

 

IU.com: Is the company surprised by how quickly the market embraced the 3X approach?

O'Rourke: As of Dec. 12, we surpassed $800 million in assets. We were at least somewhat surprised that the response has been so positive. We hope that demand stays where it is, and we have every reason to believe it will, but we won't consider the ETFs an absolute success until their longevity is proven.

IU.com: Were

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The Lehman index group is now part of Barclays Capital as a result of the British bank's purchase of bankrupt Lehman.

 

Van Eck Global's Market Vectors family of exchange-traded funds has erased the Lehman name from its municipal bond portfolios.

The shortened names for the muni bond ETFs coincide with a stock split already completed on the funds. The company hopes the moves will simplify marketing and increase the attractiveness of the funds.

The underlying Lehman indexes will continue to be used, and there will be no change to the ETFs' investment objectives, but the once-veritable bond-based brand of the now-extinct bank has disappeared from the marketed names of the ETFs.

The Lehman index group is now part of Barclays Capital as a result of the British bank's purchase of bankrupt Lehman.

Adam Phillips, managing director of Market Vectors, said in an interview with

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NYSE exec provides update on everything from AMEX's 'black box' technologies for more actively managed ETFs to progress on merging platforms.

 

Earlier this month, NYSE Euronext completed its acquisition of the American Stock Exchange. With the addition of AMEX's 416 ETF listings and 13 ETNs, the exchange-traded product listings at NYSE Euronext now number 680, excluding overseas ETFs, and a total of $595 billion in exchange-traded product assets.

IU.com's Eric Rosenbaum recently spoke with NYSE Euronext Senior Vice President Lisa Dallmer about the specific benefits of the completed acquisition for the ETF industry, and the current outlook for ETFs given the tough markets. 

 

IndexUniverse (IU): With the Amex deal completed, what are the major benefits to the NYSE as a competitor for ETF listings and ETF servicing business, beyond the bragging rights that are always a part of the battle among exchanges for market share?

Lisa Dallmer (Dallmer): At the broadest

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The closest thing to an ETF market in the Middle East at this point is Turkey, where there are five ETFs from two asset managers

Abu Dhabi, the major Middle East financial center, says it's preparing to create a platform to launch exchange-traded funds.

In detailing plans on Thursday, Rashed Al Baloushi, the deputy chief executive of the Abu Dhabi Exchange (ADX), credits increasing ETF demand by retail and institutional investors in the Middle East for the exchange's decision to build an ETF-specific platform.

Across the Middle East, ETFs and other traded securities are proving more popular and catching the attention of exchanges. The Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX), as well as exchanges in Oman and Saudi Arabia, have also shown interest in adding ETFs.

The latest ETF plans are also part of ambitious efforts by many Middle East markets to diversify away from oil wealth and become true, global financial centers.

Earlier this year, the Abu Dhabi Securities Market

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MSCI tries to tackle Russian liquidity issues with new indexes that include stocks listed outside of the country. 

 

 

MSCI Barra has created two new Russia indexes to mitigate the problems recently exposed with the frequent suspension of trading on the Russian stock markets during the global market unrest.

The new MSCI Barra indexes will capture the performance of Russian stocks that are traded outside Russia, during trading halts in Moscow.

The MICEX Stock Exchange and Russia Trading System (RTS) have halted trading for more than a full day twice since September.

What's more, new trading halt rules have been put in place at a furious pace, adding to jittery investors' lack of comfort with Russian equities trading.

Most recently, the Russian regulatory authority on Tuesday implemented a one-hour trading halt in the event that the MICEX or RTS technical indexes rise by more than 10% or fall by more than

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The biggest difference between the existing ETFs and FLM is the complete absence of utilities exposure.

 

First Trust Advisors is the latest exchange-traded funds provider to try to reap gold from a trend of increased infrastructure spending across the globe.

The ISE Global Engineering and Construction Index Fund (AMEX: FLM), launched on Wednesday. It competes with a handful of infrastructure ETFs already trading. Those include the iShares S&P Global Infrastructure Fund (NYSEArca: IGF) and the SPDR/FTSE Macquarie Global Infrastructure 100 Fund (AMEX: GII).

Also, on Oct. 16, the PowerShares Emerging Markets Infrastructure Portfolio (PXR) is expected to start trading. (See story here.)

FLM will focus on construction and engineering firms, as opposed to the utilities weighting that has dominated ETF infrastructure portfolios.

To a lesser extent, infrastructure ETFs can be compared to the wide range of materials and basic metals ETFs that also have performance linked to infrastructure spending.

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The move will allow Jov Funds to take a page from sister company BetaPro Management, already a player in Canadian ETFs.

 

JovFunds Management plans to launch one of the first actively managed stock exchange-traded funds in Canada, and in doing so, wipe away an open-end equity fund whose performance record has been forgettable.

The company is asking shareholders of its Jov Talisman Fund to approve a switch to the ETF structure, a move that will include the replacement of a portfolio manager that has trailed the fund's index, and the hiring of a new active stock picker.

The move will allow JovFunds to take a page from sister company BetaPro Management, which is already a major presence in the Canadian ETF market.

If approved, the ETF will be the first in what is planned to be a new family of active ETFs from JovFunds, to complement the large index

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Add the bond discounts to the growing list of ETF debacles in the current market volatility.

An 8% daily discount to the NAV in the supposedly the broadest bond index ETF (AGG) in the business? You've got to be kidding me.  When it feels like you have no idea of what you are looking at in the markets, my inclination is to just stay away.  Why would you use such a fund for safety when you've got no idea what's going on?  Put it in an FDIC-insured savings account or a CD, maybe (zero paying) treasures. But not in something that's trading all over the place like a lot of the bond ETFs are right now.

So the answer to Matt's "Can you trust bond ETFs? " question would appear to be "no" right now. 

In the current scenario, my money would

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The veteran ETF analyst says new job with BGI will give her even more resources to track such an expanding and complex marketplace. 

 

Barclays Global Investors caught the attention of the market last week with its hiring of Deborah Fuhr, arguably the most well-known among analysts tracking global exchange- traded funds markets.

The former Morgan Stanley strategist announced September 7 that she's moving from one of the world's largest brokerages to Barclays Global Investors, the ETF industry's biggest player. (See related story.)

Fuhr started her new job this week as BGI's global head of ETFs research and implementation strategy. Even though she has been busy  assembling a new staff and preparing for her new position, Fuhr took time out from her busy schedule recently to talk to IndexUniverse.com's Eric Rosenbaum about the move to BGI and its implications.

 

IndexUniverse.com (IU): Will you be moving to BGI's headquarters in San

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There's no end in sight for ETF volumes. Capitalism is alive and well. So are bad trading ideas. It is obviously no exaggeration to say that ETFs have completely altered the way the people look at the stock market. And for those of you who have been around ETFs for 10 years, making that sort of assertion would have elicited either a chuckle or an "E T What?" ten years ago. And I think that you've really hit the hammer on the nail, Matt, by saying that ETFs are all about trading. We focus on the long-term buy-and-hold side. But that is NOT where the bulk of those hundreds of millions of traded shares daily are going. As I've noted before, ETFs are actually being used (in tremendous volume) by some of the very largest players - including the very largest hedge funds - out there. And that is another assertion ...