(Reuters) - Chinese regulators have started licensing domestic funds to create new yuan-denominated exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for sale in Hong Kong, hoping to attract fresh investors to use yuan they have accumulated offshore to invest in mainland markets. Within two weeks of announcing a 50 billion yuan ($7.9 billion)…Read More

Courtesy of Benzinga.com's  "ETF Professor"--and distributed by Dow Jones MarketWatch.. By far the most prolific issuer of new ETFs in 2012, BlackRock's BLK +1.83% iShares unit, the world's largest ETF sponsor, will introduce another new bond ETF on Thursday when the iShares Emerging Markets Corporate Bond Fund (bats:CEMB) debuts. The…Read More

It remains to be seen whether Argentina's nationalisation of YPF ends up in a military face-off with Spain (wouldn't that be the black swan that nobody even thought of?!), but this coverage is courtesy of Zacks Research: "...In order to play the Argentinean economy in basket form, investors have the…Read More

As reported by ETF Trends (among others), diamonds could follow precious metals such as gold to be “commoditized” by the introduction of exchange traded funds based on this obscure market if regulators approve the products. An ETF could be diamonds’ best friend or their worst enemy, based on your perspective.…Read More

According to TradersMag, during Q1 2012,  ETF volume as a percentage of total volume reported by major exchange fell to 16 percent from 19 percent (for all of 2011) because correlations between individual stocks and ETFs has declined. Once again, it appears to be a stock-picker's market. The same column…Read More

Courtesy of WCI top gun Matt Buckley..For those loving Russia, here's a market neutral thesis that capitalizes on volatility. "RSX Implied Volatility is overpriced relative to its forecast volatility of 5.24% over the trade period. We are looking for possible price movement but for it to stay within its $27.00…Read More

  An exchange-traded fund platform service has been launched into the UK and European market to help IFAs and wealth managers ensure best execution when recommending clients invest in ETFs. Laurie Pinto, chief executive of London-based securities research firm NSBO, said the service is being offered through a joint venture…Read More

  As duly noted by industry expert TABB Forum, ETFs with little-known or illiquid underlying securities are a hard sell without liquidity.  "Whether you loved or hated them, major exchange specialists (including this blogger) played a vital role to help nurture small listings, and the problem of how to incent…Read More

Courtesy of Seeking Alpha's "Reel Ken" We often hear about selling covered calls to generate additional income. We also hear about selling Puts to generate income. So the question becomes: Which is a better strategy? The first step in answering this question is to understand that, from a performance perspective,…Read More

     This weekend brings celebrations of two of the most important religious holidays in the world: Easter and Passover. And given the way stocks have acted this week, a time that is historically bullish for equities, it might be a good thing that U.S. equity markets are closed tomorrow in…Read More

The "ETF Professor" over at Benzinga has already constructed his ETF portfolio in advance of winning the now, $640 million jackpot scheduled for drawing tonight.  The model portfolio comprises a nice mix representing energy, gold, emerging market, consumer staples, high yield bonds, blah blah blah... Here's the verbatim extract courtesy…Read More

Leveraged and inverse exchange-traded funds received a lot of scrutiny during the volatility of last year. But now that volatility is down and equities are on the rise, investors are more and more viewing these once exotic products as just another way to take positions on the direction of the…Read More

The regulator that oversees the sale of investment products to investors is investigating how firms are marketing exchange-traded notes, a niche product that experienced a market meltdown this year. A spokeswoman for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said Thursday the regulator is "looking at the events and trading" activity surrounding…Read More

  European institutional investors primarily use exchange-traded products as beta tools or to implement asset allocation strategies, with few investors seeing demand for active ETFs, according to an EDHEC-Risk Institute survey released Tuesday. About 70% of the 174 European institutional managers and private wealth managers who responded to the survey…Read More

“If Congress can force me to buy health insurance, can it also force me to eat broccoli?”... That question, according to WallachBeth Capital's Chris Hempstead, is one that he can't answer, but Hempstead does have a sharp-as-a-scalpel perspective re: the ETFs to put under a microscope as the US Supreme…Read More

Credit Suisse's volatility-flavored ETN,  the VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX Short-Term ETN, aka "TVIX" is, for lack of a better phrase, broken.  And it 'got broken' in mid Feb when CS halted the creation process for this product. Observed Chris Hempstead, the head of ETF trading for WallachBeth Capital, "the halt…Read More

ETF Trends' Tom Lydon makes a poignant observation when pointing out that MUB , iShares S&P National Municipal Bond Fund ETF is continuing to trade at a discount to its NAV, which for some, is a disturbing bearish signal. While ETF "discount trading" is not necessarily unusual in and of…Read More

Fast on the heels of that New York Times op-ed by a former GoldmanSachs derivatives trader, who in a public farewell tribute to the employer he had just "fired" (claiming said employer caused both the culture and very corpuscles of the firm's ecosystem to become polluted with the toxic virus…Read More