With the launch of Pimco's actively managed short-maturity fixed-income fund, is the U.S. finally ready for money market ETFs? Lara Crigger & Dave Nadig dissect the new fund, and what it means for investors.

 

Deutsche Boerse and SIX Swiss Exchange have announced that they are buying out Dow Jones’ one-third stake in Stoxx for a consideration of 206.1 million euros, or $306 million.

Stoxx was set up as a joint venture between Deutsche Boerse, Dow Jones and SIX Swiss Exchange in 1998 in anticipation of the introduction of the euro and the creation of the eurozone. Stoxx is Europe's leading index provider in the ETF market and Europe's No. 1 (world No. 2) provider in the derivatives market, according to the company’s Web site. A number of U.S.-listed ETFs are tied to the company’s indexes as well.

Following the transaction’s completion, which is due to take place early next year, Deutsche Boerse will have a controlling stake in Stoxx of 50 percent plus one share and will fully consolidate it for accounting purposes.

In addition, SIX and Deutsche Boerse will set up a new entity

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IndexUniverse.com Editor Matt Hougan joins Bob Pisani and Tom Lydon to discuss how ETF investors should approach the commodity and currency markets.

 

IndexUniverse.com Editor Matt Hougan joins Bob Pisani and Tom Lydon to discuss how ETF investors should approach the commodity and currency markets.

 

 

Fresh from the Inside Commodities conference, IndexUniverse.com editors cover the high spots, from Nouriel Roubini's doom & gloom to the surprising rays of light.

Direct from Schwab's New York ETF launch event, Matt Hougan and Dave Nadig discuss the "free-to-trade" ETF concept.

Matt Hougan and Dave Nadig debate the pros and cons of exchange-traded notes, examining their tax treatment, issuer credit risk and the dearth of new products.

 

A new ETF giving access to Chinese A shares is to be launched in Singapore next month.

The United FTSE Xinhua China A50 ETF, to be offered by the asset management subsidiary of United Overseas Bank (UOB), will be the first China A-shares fund to be denominated and traded in Singapore dollars.

Chinese A shares are denominated and traded in Chinese yuan and listed on the Shanghai or Shenzhen stock exchanges. Historically, access to the A-shares market in China has been limited to Chinese nationals and qualified foreign institutional investors (QFIIs) approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC).

The FTSE Xinhua China A50 Index is designed to measure the performance of the 50 largest China A-shares companies, based on market capitalization.

ETFs tracking A shares are already dominant in the Asian market. The Hong Kong-listed iShares Asia Trust, which also tracks the FTSE Xinhua A50 Index, is the largest Asian ETF, with $6.7

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Unique expiring funds would track recently launched S&P indexes.

 

Recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicate that Barclays Global Investors (soon to come under ownership by BlackRock) is looking to launch a family of municipal bond exchange-traded funds targeting certain maturity dates.

Each fund would hold the underlying securities from its respective index to full maturity, at which point the fund would simply retain a cash position. When the last holding of each fund reaches maturity, presumably on or about Aug. 31 of the targeted year, the fund’s assets will be distributed to shareholders, much like the underlying bonds themselves.

The funds would track indexes in the recently launched S&P AMT-Free Municipal Bond Index Series. The indexes target investment-grade muni bonds that mature between June 1 and Aug. 31 of a specific year. Eight individual indexes cover the years 2012 through 2019, though the fund filings so far only

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Leading academics and index experts examine how investors should handle the falling dollar.

 

The Death Of The Dollar?, the November/December 2009 issue of the Journal Of Indexes, focuses on currency and related strategies, with contributions from Invesco PowerShares' Bruce Bond, the International Securities Exchange's Steve Meizinger and Marc Chandler and Jeffrey McCarthy of Brown Brothers Harriman, not to mention a currency primer by Index Publications' own Dave Nadig, Matt Hougan and Lara Crigger.

Other articles in the publication include a look at how EMH weathered the financial crisis of 2008 by David Blitzer, the first installment of a three-part series on improving fund evaluation techniques by Gary Gastineau and a study from David Blanchett on how to figure out the "passive" portion of an actively managed portfolio. And let's not forget the ETF crossword puzzle on the back page!

You can view the entire issue

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Is currency truly an asset class? On the back of their recent Journal of Indexes article, Dave Nadig and Lara Crigger explore the numbers.