Tag Archives: exchange-traded funds

jane-street-corporate-bond-market-maker

Quant-Centric ETF Market-Maker Jane Street Adds Corporate Bond Axe

Jane Street Capital, the quant-centric proprietary trading firm best known for its dominant role in the ETF marketplace–including its role as a liquidity provider for stocks and options as well as exchange-traded funds to buy-side accounts– has a new arrow in its quiver; making markets in corporate bonds.  The firm disclosed that it is lifted its anonymous veil and is now a ‘disclosed dealer’ on electronic bond trading platform MarketAxess (NASDAQ: MKTX).

jane-street-capitalShall we guess whether the 6-pack banks and their first cousins–the industry’s legacy source of liquidity to buy-side managers navigating the corporate bond market landscape are (i) happy to have a new competitor, (ii) happy not to have to make markets and tie up balance sheets with inventory of hard-to-move corporate bonds or (iii) f–king pissed that tech-focused prop trading firms are now invading a secondary market product area that banks have viewed as their exclusive territory since time began?

As noted by WSJ reporter, Matt Wirz, investment banks and brokerages are the main go-betweens for money managers looking to buy and sell corporate bonds, about $25 billion of which trade daily in the U.S. Now, Jane Street Capital LLC, has begun offering the same service to investment firms on electronic trading platform MarketAxess and has recruited about 60 clients, people familiar with the matter said.

The move puts Jane Street in direct competition with traditional dealers like Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. It also shows how bond markets are being transformed by electronic and algorithmic trading, innovations that swept stock and currency markets more than a decade ago.

Jane Street’s headquarters are a five-minute walk from Wall Street, but in some ways the firm is more akin to a Silicon Valley startup than an investment bank. “They have a different approach—there’s not a lot of sales and a lot of technology,” says Mike Nappi, a bond trader for mutual-fund manager Eaton Vance Corp. who has bought and sold bonds through Jane Street. “That’s different from a traditional bank where they have a lot of sales and the technology is more like Microsoft Excel.”

By joining those ranks, Jane Street aims to get recognition from asset managers for the balance sheet it uses to buy and sell with them, ultimately boosting the amount they trade with the firm, said Matt Berger, the firm’s head of fixed income and commodities trading. Jane Street trades about $550 million worth of corporate bonds in the U.S. every day, he said. This amounts to about 2% of the overall market, five times more than the firm traded two years ago.

That expansion would have been impossible without the recent spread of electronic bond trading.

Technology-driven trading firms like Jane Street and Virtu Financial LLC emerged after stock exchanges electronified in the 1990s, connecting  buyers and sellers through computers and reducing trading times to fractions of a second. The firms’ computer scientists built programs to cull market data and identify profitable trades that humans missed. Now, quantitative trading firms dominate the stock market.

Electronic trading has been slower to catch on in debt markets because bonds typically trade over-the-counter rather than on centralized exchanges. That has begun to change over the past five years as banks and money managers turn to electronic trading and data analysis to trim costs and to connect to more trading partners. Electronic trading platforms like MarketAxess have given Jane Street and other quantitative investors venues to apply the technology they used in other markets.

MarketAxess accounted for about 18% of all U.S. investment-grade bond trading last year, up from 12% in 2014, according to data from the company.

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Jane Street, founded by four partners including Michael Jenkins and Robert Granieri, now has about 50 bond salespeople and traders. Recruiting materials tout chess facilities, office gyms, math puzzle contests.

The firm trades less debt overall than most banks, which still employ hundreds of human sales and trading staff. But when it comes to its inventory of corporate bonds, “we are on par with the banks,” Mr. Berger said.

Jane Street hold bonds on its balance sheet for days or weeks to facilitate so-called portfolio trades of bundles of bonds often tied to ETFs. The portfolio deals normally range from $50 million to $750 million but can go as high as $2 billion, a person familiar with its trades said.

Read the full WSJ story here

CNBC Debuts Programming Dedicated to ETFs-Finally!

MarketsMuse coverage of the exchange-traded fund (ETF) industry began nearly ten years ago, and our senior curators have since been scratching their heads as to why CNBC, the retail investors’ most-watched business news network had never created dedicated programming to educate their viewers about ETFs, an asset class that has consistently grown (by as much as 20% YoY). How big is this market? Based on various metrics published by the assortment of ETF Issuers, more than $3 Trillion (with a “T”) of ETFs are held by US investors, the global market size is over $5 Trillion (with a “T”).

More telling, RIAs (Registered Investment Advisors) that manage money for retail investors now allocate well more than 50% of client money into these thematic funds. That said, CNBC–the business media channel that has become ubiquitous for its retail investor-targeted 12 hour+ daily coverage of stock market activity, interviews with fund managers, sell-side research analysts and public company CEOs have provided merely tangential insight to the ETF marketplace. Until now, that is.

Yesterday, CNBC premiered a new segment titled “ETF Edge” and hosted by commentator Bob Pisani. The premiere segment captured two particularly insightful ETF industry veterans; hedge fund manager Tim Seymour (who is also one of CNBC’s frequent market commentators) and Andy McCormond, Managing Director of ETF Execution for agency broker-dealer WallachBeth Capital, a boutique institutional brokerage whose thought-leadership on the topic of ETFs and better approaches to executing orders in ETF products has been embraced by a discrete universe of institutional investors and tens of dozens of RIAs for more than 10 years.

Hats Off to CNBC for shedding more light on an asset class that retail investors need to know more about.  Roll the opening show clip!

ETF Edge, January 23, 2019 from CNBC.

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MiFID II ETFs

MiFID II Fuels Massive EU Move Towards ETFs, ETF Options, Sec Lending

MiFID II Implementation Triggers Flow of $50b into Europe ETF Market In First Weeks of 2018; ETF Sec Lending and  ETF Options Growth Expected to Drive EU Financial Markets.

“What we’ve seen for the first time in European ETF trading is really a concerted interest in trading ETF options in Europe. A load of clients use ETF options in the States, but in 2018 — and it’s a culmination of MiFID II (and other factors) — I think there is an acceptance that this is now a practical and attractive proposal for people who want to trade volatility, buy protection or raise income by selling options. That’s really unlocking a whole new dimension in the way end-investors can use ETFs,”

Twenty-five years ago, when SPDR, the original Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) was christened on the American Stock Exchange with the nickname “Spiders”, this MarketsMuse senior curator was one of the first market-makers on the Amex to trade the ‘new-fangled’ product.  Along with a cadre of other professional traders and floor brokers from that time, we’re now viewed as the original cast of The ETF Story.  A quarter of a century later, ETFs represent $3trillion in assets; a number that some expect to double in size in just a few more years.  Across the US financial market ecosystem, the ETF evolution has transformed investment strategy schemes on the part of retail and institutional investors within the context of equity, fixed income, commodities and derivatives market investment styles. And with the January 2018 implementation of  The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II), few will dispute that Europe is on the cusp of realizing a massive asset allocation transformation to ETF constructs, as the benefits to investors and industry participants cannot be understated.

Slawomir Rzeszotko, Jane Street
Slawomir Rzeszotko, Jane Street

“Best execution and post-trade transparency are two areas where MiFID II seems to have had an impact on ETF trading,” said Slawomir Rzeszotko, head of institutional sales and trading, Europe, at quantitative trading firm, global liquidity provider and market maker Jane Street Group LLC in London. “In both cases, the changes appear to have encouraged institutional investors to execute more trades via (request for quote platforms).”

For those who are still unclear as to the value proposition of utilizing exchange-traded funds, let us the count the ways, starting with the ability to deploy assets based on investment theme (e.g. industry or index of specific types of stocks or bonds) via an instrument that trades just like a stock in terms of transparency, liquidity and low cost commissions. There’s a host of reasons why retail investors are generally better served to use ETFs vs. Mutual Funds. Let’s not overlook Warren Buffett’s view that index investing is a smarter approach for individual investors. For institutional investors, the list of reasons to embrace ETFs has become equally compelling. We won’t provide a tutorial if you haven’t gotten the memo yet, we’ll simply point you to the text book explanation.  It’s taken a long time for institutional investors in the U.S. to ‘get the joke’, now its time for European ETF Issuers to ramp up the education and awareness process aimed at institutional investors. Here’s a few hints as to how MiFID II implementation is going to benefit those charged with overseeing institutional portfolios, pension assets and end retail clients:

  1. Greater Transparency (which delivers Greater Liquidity)
  2. Lower Cost to Execute (vs mutual funds)
  3. Ability to allocate to specific themes
  4. Portfolio Transition Ease
  5. Securities Lending (Sec Lending) Opportunities (more income to funds that hold ETFs)
  6. Introduction of Options on ETFs–to enable hedging and portfolio optimization schemes.

“When volumes and trading hit a certain critical point, the acceptability of any of those things that trade as collateral becomes more feasible.” The look-through liquidity afforded by the MiFID II rules means “we’re at a tipping point where ETFs themselves are being recognized increasingly as something that can be used in the world of lending. It means the borrow market in ETFs in Europe is moving toward where it is in the States.. A good “borrow” or securities lending market also lends itself to a “functional options market..”

We’ll leave the lengthier explanation to P&I’s Sophie Baker–who put forth a superb dissertation in the Feb 19 2018 edition of Pensions & Investments Magazine titled “Europe in line for ETF boom, thanks to MiFID II”.  MarketsMuse ETF curators also extends a big shout out to “Dame Deborah Fuhr”, who is viewed by most across ETF land as the “Queen of ETFs”.  Her Eminence Dame Deborah is an industry icon and founder of research platform and industry think tank ETFGI. When it comes to objectively framing the ETF value proposition within the European theater, nobody does it better–so we think you should follow her on Twitter.

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etf-broker-rfq

ETF Broker Rolls Out Quote Capture Tool for Block Trades

JERSEY CITY, N.J., Jan. 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — ETF broker WallachBeth Capital, a leading institutional brokerage firm, has announced the Phase I roll out of its internal proprietary Quote Capture platform. The platform further enhances WallachBeth’s commitment to providing institutional clients the highest degree of transparency throughout the ETF execution process.

WallachBeth has always leveraged the advantages of a competitive quote model to source liquidity for outsized ETF block trades, providing price improvement and increased liquidity in often hard-to-trade and/or illiquid products. In light of clients’ interest in the transparency provided by RFQ (“Request for Quote”) platforms, WallachBeth’s Quote Capture tool allows clients to quantify and validate their price discovery process and satisfy compliance obligations.

The foundation of WallachBeth’s ETF execution business is providing institutional clients high touch access to a full suite of execution strategies, coupled with agnostic advice throughout the trade lifecycle. WallachBeth continues to be increasingly relevant to the broadening number of institutions using ETF products and strategies to achieve their investment mandates. Andrew Mcormond, Managing Director, ETF Trading Solutions, at WallachBeth Capital states, “We always emphasize that best price often goes beyond a block trade. True best execution requires a comprehensive plan that includes experienced consultation, pre- and post- trade analysis and the invaluable expertise of seasoned ETF traders.”

About WallachBeth Capital LLC

WallachBeth Capital is a leading provider of institutional execution services, offering clients a full spectrum of solutions to help them navigate increasingly complex markets. The firm’s expertise includes ETF and equity trading, derivatives, and capital markets. Operating on a fully disclosed, agency-only basis, the firm is committed to facilitating all client needs with transparency and integrity. The firm’s website is located at www.wallachbeth.com.

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victor-haghani-etf

Another Old-Style Quant Jock Embraces ETF-Style Passive Investing

Former LTCM Guru Gives Up the Ghost; Converts From Convergence Trading to Passive Investing Armed with ETFs

Proving that old traders never die, they simply re-invent themselves, yet another highly-seasoned hedge fund guru whose pedigree extends back to Salomon Brothers and thereafter, senior partner at the now infamous hedge fund Long Term Capital (LTCM) has become a convert to the world of ETFs and passive investing through the use of index-based exchange-traded funds. With $500mil AUM via London-based Elm Partners Management LLC, Victor Haghani is a new man with a big bankroll and is extolling the virtues of exchange-traded funds.

“..A man once at the center of a world-rattling hedge-fund collapse believes you should think twice before trying to beat the market.”

For those in the industry who were barely out of diapers when Long Term Capital rose among the ranks of the world’s most famous funds and then fell like a rock in the midst of the Russian ruble devaluation in the late ’90s, LTCM was the Greenwich, CT-based quant shop /hedge fund created by Nobel Prize winners and credited with minting money by deploying highly-levered, quantitative-based “convergence trading” strategies. What made the firm go from famous to infamouse was its rapid demise in 1998 when the Russia Flu found the hedge firm’s holdings in Russian bonds suffering from from severe-mark-down syndrome, creating a domino effect of losses across Wall Street prime brokers, and ultimately required a $3.6billion bailout by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

But, as any astute follower of hedge fund gurus will attest, if you haven’t lost a bundle along the way, then you’re probably not a big shot deserving of another swing at the bat. The mere fact that 55-year old Haghani has eschewed exploiting opaque markets and instead, is now embracing passive investing schemes via index-based strategies, speaks volumes to the impact that ETFs have had in transforming the investment management landscape.

MarketsMuse editors extend a “hats off” to WSJ’s Sam Goldfarb for the reincarnation story below.

Victor Haghani, a veteran of the legendary Salomon Brothers trading floor, is probably best known as a founding partner of Long-Term Capital Management LP, the hedge fund that posted huge returns using leveraged bets in the mid-90s before collapsing 19 years ago so spectacularly that the Federal Reserve deemed it a threat to the financial system.

That experience dramatically altered the course of Mr. Haghani’s life, leading to a roughly decade long break from full-time work, during which he seriously considered a career in another field, such as arbitration or academia.

Now, 55-year-old Mr. Haghani is back as a presence in the financial world, a person both familiar and different from the one last seen in public. The relentlessly quantitative side of him is still very much intact. The “volatile, impulsive streak” identified in “When Genius Failed,” Roger Lowenstein’s 2000 book about LTCM, is hard to detect.

Since 2011, Mr. Haghani has run, from a small office near his home in London, Elm Partners Management LLC, an investment firm that now manages around $550 million of assets. Using a simple algorithm, the firm takes into account valuations and momentum to invest in index and exchange-traded funds across different asset classes. Index funds, as of Sept. 30, accounted for 43% of U.S. stock-fund assets, up from 12% in 2000, according to the Investment Company Institute. Many on Wall Street believe that the proliferation of technology and information means there are simply fewer opportunities than there used to be to find market-beating returns.

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Index funds, as of Sept. 30, accounted for 43% of U.S. stock-fund assets, up from 12% in 2000, according to the Investment Company Institute. Using index funds and ETFs, Elm Partners’ baseline allocation is 75% risk assets, such as stocks, and 25% fixed income, with about two-thirds from the U.S. Allocations to specific buckets such as European stocks, which normally would represent 12.3% of the total portfolio, can be dialed up or down by up to two-thirds based on their valuations or one-third if current prices depart from their one-year moving average, suggesting short-term momentum

Along with giving Mr. Haghani something to do in the morning, Elm has given him a platform, which he has used in part to make a forceful case for the merits of passive investing. In journal articles, blog posts and videos, he has explored, among other issues, the different ways that people fail to maximize their savings, such as by trusting their intuition or overestimating their abilities.

It is, perhaps, the perfect role for him, as his former success as a trader lends him credibility while his famous failure provides an example of what can happen to even the savviest investors. To keep reading the WSJ story, click here

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nasdaq-eases-blank-check-spac-ipo-listing

Nasdaq Bets on Blank-Check Co. IPOs To Boost Listings; SPACs are Sizzling

Competition for listings is a contact sport in the world of major stock exchanges as evidenced by the assortment of US bourses vying to increase market share in exchange-traded fund (ETFs), which represent nearly 2000 securities or more than half of all equities listed on major US stock exchanges.  While the NYSE has long been the place-to-list for issuers of ETFs, Nasdaq has proven to have sharp elbows in not only soliciting ETF issuers (with BATS taking a distant third), Nasdaq now has another card up its sleeve-the exchange operator is aiming at another listing product known as blank-check companies and is aggressively biting at the heels of Intercontinental Exchange Inc.’s NYSE, which has carved out a niche in the listing of these companies, more formally known as Special Purpose Acquisition Companies aka SPACs ™. In an effort to grab market share in this product away from NYSE and boost IPO listings (and hence more fees from Issuers and more revenue from distributing market data) Nasdaq recently filed proposed new rule changes with the SEC that will make it easier for SPACs ™ to list on that platform.

According to reporting by Alexander Osipovich of the WSJ, 22 blank-check companies have floated IPOs so far this year, raising nearly $7bil.

Special Purpose Acquisition Vehicles are shell companies that raise funds via a public offering whereby the proceeds are managed by a pre-selected team of industry-specific executives who receive an equity stake in the shell and are charged with acquiring an existing private company or in some cases, several private companies and roll those companies into the existing publicly-traded entity. In the event an acquisition cannot be identified and approved by an overwhelming majority of the shareholders within [typically] 24 months of the IPO, 95% of the funds raised are returned to the shareholders.

The investment vehicle construct was first created in the 1970’s, but soon fell out favor after regulators uncovered widespread abuse by operators of  blank check company managers, which led to multiple cases of securities fraud charges against many different firms.  The blank check model was later refined in the early 1990’s by GKN Securities, whose principals created a much tighter construct and trademarked the SPAC™ acronym. GKN successor firm boutique investment bank Early Bird Capital since carried the torch of its predecessor; during the past ten years, Early Bird has underwritten and/or co-managed nearly 75 SPAC™ IPOs that have raised over $4bil.

Early Bird’s early success has not gone unnoticed by leading Wall Street firms; 6-pack investment banks Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Deutsche Bank among others have crowded into the space that Early Bird Capital forged. In 2017 alone, SPACs™ have raised nearly $4bil for an assortment of acquisition-minded firms.

According to Paul Azous, CEO of Prospectus.com, a consultancy that assists companies throughout the course of preparing investor offering documentation and via a captive network of securities attorneys, the firm also advises companies seeking to list on stock exchanges, “The blank-check concept is in vogue once again, and we’re working with at least two clients who have targeted specific industries that are seemingly ripe for roll-up.” Added Azous, “With Nasdaq easing the listing burdens, strategy of creating a public shell that can with reasonable ease, roll a private company into that publicly-listed entity should provide a good shot-in-the-arm to IPO activity, which has experienced fits and starts in each of the last several years.”

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Bats Europe Enables Direct Access for Buy-Side Managers

According to MarketsMuse market structure mavens, if you can say “dis-intermediate” five times in under 5 seconds, or if you can simply spell the word (without looking at this blog post), then “you’ll get the joke” i.e. exchange operator Bats Global Markets (acquired last year by CBOE for $3.2bil) is a disrupt-or. After sell-side firms were given direct access to a new block trading service for the European equity market launched by stock exchange operator Bats Europe in December,  it was just revealed that starting next month, buy-side asset managers will gain direct access to the same block trading platform. The pending roll-out will enable buy-side traders to submit their own Indications of Interest (IOIs) so as to reduce information slippage.

Bats Europe licensed technology from Bids Trading, the largest block trading ATS by volume in the US to launch Bats LIS (Large in Scale) in December. Per reporting from Markets Media….

Dave Howson, chief operating officer at Bats Europe, told Markets Media that average trade size has grown to more than €1m over the past month since sell-side firms were given direct access to Bats LIS. He added: “We have eight to ten brokers regularly utilizing the platform with additional participants joining all the time.”

Buy-side firms have been able to access Bats LIS through a broker but the service is being rolled out so asset managers also have direct access.

Dave Howson, Bats

“Over the next month, buy side will have direct access to submit indications of interest into the Bats LIS platform,” said Howson. “One of the key benefits of the platform is that the buy side control their IOI up until it is matched before turning it over to a designated broker for execution, which means information leakage in minimized.”

Under MiFID II, the new European Union regulations which come into effect in January next year, block trades above a specified minimum size can trade under a large in scale waiver which allows market participants to negotiate trades without the need to make quotes public to meet the pre-trade transparency requirements. The ability to trade large blocks will become even more important as MiFID II also places volume caps on trading in a dark pool without a waiver.

Another MiFID II compliant service for block trading that has been introduced by Bats Europe is the Periodic Auctions book. Launched in October 2015, the Periodic Auctions book is a separate lit book that independently operates intra-day auctions throughout the day. Howson said: “A priority is to change the structure of our Periodic Auction order book to optimise the duration of the auction, which should result in increased order matching.”

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He continued that another priority in Europe is to increase the volume of trading of exchange-traded funds, which should be boosted by the MiFID II requirements to report ETF trading. Howson added: “The new trade reporting obligation under MiFID II will increase transparency in ETFs so should we expect to see an increase trading of these products on trading venues.”

In June last year Bats launched a new indices business with the introduction of a UK-focused benchmark index series of 18 different indices. In December, Bats added eight indices for the French, German, Italian and Swiss markets bringing the total number of European indices managed by Bats to 26.

“We are currently focused on building European coverage with our indices,” added Howson. “Further down the road we’ll look to create products on the back of the indices, but right now we’re focused on expanding our reach.”

Bats Europe operates a trade reporting facility, BXTR, which will be registered under MiFID II.  BXTR reported more than €4.8trillion in transactions last year.

To continue reading Markets Media coverage, click here
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buyside-holdings-etf-product-marketsmuse

Buy-Side Beefs Up Use of ETF Products; They Finally Get The Joke

ETF product use among the Buy-Side is no longer viewed as “just a portfolio re-balance or transition management tool,”  according to a survey of the investment industry’s largest portfolio managers. More PMs than ever are finally ‘getting the joke’ with regard to the value proposition of Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), according to a recent report by State Street Global. The up-trending holdings of ETF products across the institutional manager community is attributed to a variety of reasons that include better product education, the ongoing search for alpha, the need to reduce single-stock exposure, and according to Europe-based fund managers, ETF products are ideal vehicles to express global macro investment views.

According to recent research from State Street Global, 85% of investment professionals are using exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to gain exposure to individual sectors or industries. More than one-quarter of survey respondents (26%) report that over 20% of their assets under management are allocated to sector/industry ETFs.

This research is based on State Street Global Advisors’ Survey of Investment Professionals’ Sector and Industry Investing Attitudes and Usage, completed in the first quarter of 2016. The study comprised web-based interviews with 419 financial advisors and wealth managers.

While it is hard to compare the two conventionally – the average daily amount of stock trading as measured by Bats Global runs around 7.30 billion shares compared to 1.3 billion for ETFs, the latter reported by SSGA. When compared on a notional dollar basis, ETFs hit $13.1 billion versus $48.5 billion for stocks.

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The estimated value of all ETF shares issued exceeded that of shares redeemed by $5.60 billion for the week ended October 26, 2016, the Investment Company Institute recently reported. For ETFs backed by equities, for the week ended November 1 net issuance hit $5.23 billion for the week, compared to estimated net issuance of $2.38 billion in the previous week. Domestic equity ETFs had estimated net issuance of $4.03 billion, and world equity ETFs had estimated net issuance of $1.19 billion.

Nick Good, co-head of the Global SPDR business at State Street Global Advisors, told Markets Media that the research pointed a rosy picture for ETFs going forward. He said the survey found that the use of sector and industry ETFs is highest among private wealth managers, with 92 percent reporting they had some exposure to the sector and/or industry funds; followed by independent/regional broker dealer advisors (87 percent), National Broker Dealer advisors (86 percent) and Registered Investment Advisors (80 percent).

“The most important variables these investment professionals consider when choosing a specific sector or industry ETF are liquidity, expense ratio and the fund’s holdings,” he said.

Looking ahead, 45 percent of financial advisors surveyed report they plan to increase usage of ETFs while another 50 percent said they plan to maintain their current allocation of sector and industry ETFs in the future.

Advisors’ top reasons for incorporating sector and industry ETFs into client portfolios include:

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virtu says no to corporate bond etf market-making

Virtu Says NO to Corporate Bond ETF Market-Making

Virtu Says NO to Corporate Bond ETF risk-taking; Top Market-Maker Opines “Unable to Hedge ETF Constituents Due To Limited Liqudity”

During the better part of three years, MarketsMuse Fixed Income curators have often pointed to concerns expressed by market professionals who argue that the unfettered growth of corporate bond ETFs are masking the inevitable likelihood that once interest rates begin to rise, buy side fund managers fearful of mark-downs in their corporate bond positions will push the ‘sell button’ en masse to limit the P&L hit. Those in the camp expressing such concerns, which includes Virtu Financial, one of the most successful electronic market-makers in the industry, believe that such a mass exodus will wreak havoc on the now $8.4 trillion US corporate bond ecosystem* (*data according to Sifma), where new issuance for 2016 has just surpassed 1 Trillion dollars, and is a marketplace that since 2011 alone, has grown nearly 50% in terms of notional value and number of outstanding issues.

Per one senior market risk expert familiar with the thinking at Virtu, “Their’s isn’t simply a view typically attributed to academics, who have increasingly warned and have been equally derided by ETF lobbyists for suggesting a secondary market meltdown in corporate bond ETF products is inevitable when rates rise. Instead, Virtu has concluded that for those who make a business of ‘taking the other side’ of corporate bond exchange-traded funds, whether investment grade (e.g $LQD) or high yield themed (e.g $HYG), will find themselves playing a game of musical chairs, but there will be no chairs available for anyone when the music stops and traders will find themselves unable to find any liquidity in the respective ETF underlying constituents.”

Below opening excerpt from mainstream media outlet Bloomberg LP and reported by Bloomberg reporter Annie Massa:

One of the world’s largest electronic market makers won’t touch increasingly popular corporate bond ETF products because the underlying securities are too hard to trade.

Although New York-based Virtu Financial Inc. buys and sells everything from stocks to government bonds and futures on more than 235 exchanges around the world, it shuns products linked to corporate bonds like the $15 billion iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF. The reason, according to Chief Executive Officer Doug Cifu, is that it’s too hard for Virtu to precisely hedge the trades.

“It’s definitely concerning you don’t have full and unfettered access to the underlying,” Cifu said, speaking at a Security Traders Association conference in Washington on Thursday. “That’s troubling.”

During the fourth quarter of 2015, TABB Group interviewed key US corporate bond market participants across buy-side, sell-side and specialized trade service providers.Across all segments covered within the survey, participants’ responses reflected dim expectations for liquidity available in the US corporate bond market for 2016. Apart from the threat of a “large scale macro crisis,” the most serious threat that participants identified was the ongoing decline in immediacy (balance sheet) provided by dealers.

Worldwide assets in bond ETFs have surged in recent years, jumping fivefold since January 2010 to about $600 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. About 88 million shares of fixed-income ETFs have traded daily in the U.S. during the past 30 days, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Other market makers including Citadel Securities and Susquehanna do trade the ETFs, but Virtu’s absence is notable given how dominant the company is in other areas. Cifu said Virtu does trade ETFs containing U.S. Treasuries, including the ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury.

To read a Bloomberg Markets profile of Virtu, click here.

Virtu’s strategy involves arbitraging price difference in related assets, quickly entering and exiting the positions. With fixed-income ETFs, the company is concerned it can’t get access to the related bonds fast enough. Market makers with longer trading time frames may be less reluctant. Virtu’s line of thinking echoes worries elsewhere in the industry. Shares of the funds are often easier to trade than their underlying bonds, potentially posing a risk if there’s a sudden rush for the exit.

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CME Launches Tool To Compare ETF Pricing vs Futures

(Traders Magazine)-CME Group, the US derivatives exchange, has launched an online tool to allow investors to compare the costs of futures against exchange-traded funds, as some ETF issuers have claimed the funds are now cheaper to use.

Last month the CME launched the Total Cost Analysis tool to allow investors to compare the all-in costs of replicating the S&P 500 by trading equity index futures versus ETFs, and intends to expand the tool to other indexes.

Tim McCourt, global head of equity products at CME Group, told Markets Media: “The online tool gives customers the flexibility to compare costs for specific variables such as commissions, trade size and time period.”

The tool focuses on three different components of the total cost of trading – transaction costs, implementation costs and holding costs. McCourt claimed that for an active trader on a short time horizon, futures are overwhelmingly cheaper on a total cost of trading basis, which includes both fees and market impact but in certain circumstances, over different time periods, this could change.

Source, the European ETF issuer, had issued a paper in April, “ETFs vs Futures”, which said futures have become more expensive due to bank regulation while ETFs have become cheaper due to increased competition. The paper said that futures costs have been cheaper recently, this is expected to change. “We expect that, as volatility reduces, the usual imbalance between buyers and sellers in the futures markets will resume and futures costs will return to the levels we saw between 2013 and 2015,” said the report.

In addition Source said futures are particularly expensive relative to ETFs at the December roll as banks have less risk appetite at the financial year-end. “For investors planning to hold an exposure over the December-March period, it may make sense to buy ETFs instead of futures,” added Source.

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Pac-Man Time for ETF Issuers

If you thought the ETF Issuers industry is getting crowded, you are right. While the barrier to entry is relatively low, the path to traction-measured by AUM can prove rocky, if not populated with land mines. What’s an Issuer to do? Join the Pac-Man Party and sell out what you’ve built to those with a fresh perspective who want to Pass Go and collect the $200 (metaphorically speaking) without having to start from scratch. MarketsMuse gives a shout-out to P&I contributor Randy Diamond for the following update..

“More and more money managers are looking at a way to get into the ETF marketplace,” he said. “The fastest way to do that is through an acquisition; buy something already out there.”

Small ETF providers might have little market share, but that hasn’t stopped them from being acquired by larger active money management firms looking for a quick way to enter or expand their exchange-traded funds business.

Hartford Funds, Radnor, Pa., announced May 17 its purchase of Lattice Strategies, a San Francisco firm known for its smart-beta ETFs. Just a week earlier, Columbia Threadneedle Investments, Boston, said it would acquire New York-based ETF provider Emerging Global Advisors.

The two announcements by money management firms are the latest in a string of deals that began in late 2014.

At least two more ETF providers will be sold in 2016 to money managers, predicted investment banker Donald Putnam, a managing partner at San Francisco-based Grail Partners LLC. Mr. Putnam said likely buyers will be firms with 20% to 40% of assets under management in mutual funds. “A lot of it has to do with pivoting existing mutual funds into ETF clones, a lot of it has to do with taking asset management styles that are not in mutual funds and putting them in ETF form initially rather than in old-fashioned mutual fund form,” he said.

Mr. Putnam wouldn’t say which ETF companies he believes are ripe for acquisition, but Reggie Browne, senior managing director and head of ETF trading at Cantor Fitzgerald LP, New York, said potential acquisition targets include AdvisorShares Investments LLC and WisdomTree Investments Inc., New York.

AdvisorShares, Bethesda, Md., with $1.2 billion in assets under management, is the more typical size of ETF managers being acquired. Publicly traded WisdomTree, on the other hand, is the largest independent ETF company in the U.S., with $42 billion in assets under management.

Jan van Eck, president and CEO of New York-based VanEck Global, an ETF company with $23.7 billion in U.S. ETF assets, said in the past year he has talked to at least 10 managers interested in acquiring an ETF company. “We stay in touch with potential strategic partners and investors, but we don’t see a reason for a transaction,” he said. “We think we can grow sufficiently as an independent company.”

Capture a slice

Todd Rosenbluth, a New York-based senior director and director of ETF and mutual fund research at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said as asset flows continue to move from active management and into areas such as ETFs, active managers are trying to position themselves to capture a slice of the growing business.

“More and more money managers are looking at a way to get into the ETF marketplace,” he said. “The fastest way to do that is through an acquisition; buy something already out there.”

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O’Leary of Shark Tank Brands Bigger Pool of ETF Products

The summer interns at MarketsMuse had already voted “Shark Tank” as their favorite TV show,  so it was no surprise that our senior curators took their cue to advance the latest news from Kevin O’Leary, the celeb entrepreneur and more recently, an ETF aficionado who has extended his brand to the world of exchange-traded fund (ETF) products under the O’Shares Investment umbrella.

(Bloomberg) — Kevin O’Leary is out to carve a niche for himself in the world of exchange-traded funds.

The chairman of O’Shares Investments and Shark Tank personality has filed a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch 17 ETFs. All the proposed offerings have “quality” in the name and would employ a passive investing approach. The investable universe of these funds includes emerging-market equities, small-cap U.S. stocks, preferred shares, and even corporate credit.

“It’s rare for an indie shop like this to put this many funds on one filing,” said Eric Balchunas, ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

O’Leary’s celebrity status and the application of smart-beta strategies to fixed income could help the Canadian businessman differentiate himself and attract assets in what’s becoming a crowded ETF space, with roughly 60 issuers in the U.S. The “quality” designation suggests O’Leary’s ETFs will put a priority on conservative factors, which are in vogue as the bull market enters its eighth year.

O’Shares’ most popular current offering, the FTSE U.S. Quality Dividend ETF (NYSE ARCA: OUSA), has $240.5-million in assets and has outperformed the S&P 500 so far this year:

Details on expense ratios or fees for O’Shares‘ proposed ETFs weren’t included in the preliminary prospectus. The FTSE U.S. Quality Dividend ETF has an expense ratio of 0.48 percent, which is roughly in line with that of other smart beta offerings.

Earlier this year, O’Leary indicated that he was considering a run for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada after former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Tories lost the 2015 federal election to the Liberals, led by Justin Trudeau.

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Deutsche Börse Gets Into ETF Block Trades

(MarketsMedia)–European exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuers have welcomed a new service from Deutsche Börse which aims to make it easier to trade large ETF orders on the German exchange.

Deutsche Börse has launched Xetra Quote Request which allows investors to send quote requests for large orders to all registered market makers of a selected ETF, rather than having to negotiate ETF transactions bilaterally over-the-counter or through request-for-quote systems.

The market makers respond by updating their quotes in the Xetra order book, Deutsche Börse’s electronic trading platform. Investors can generally receive a response within 120 seconds of the submission of a quote request although less liquid funds may require more time than highly liquid products according to the exchange.

The process is designed to achieve a high degree of automation with straight-through processing, clearing and settlement, which reduces operational and counterparty risks, while ensuring compliance with best execution requirements for large orders.

Deutsche Börse said in a statement: “Investors therefore benefit from a potential price improvement over execution against a single market maker quote, and ensure best execution by simultaneously interacting with the full liquidity available in the order book.”

Jürgen Blumberg, head of European capital markets at Source, told Markets Media that the European ETF issuer very much liked the Deutsche Börse initiative. “In Europe approximately 70% of ETF volume is traded over-the-counter and liquidity is invisible. If there is more visibility then ETFs will be even more widely used,” he added.

Lansing agreed that the European market will benefit from more on-exchange trading.

“A number of ETP issuers (including us) have long recommended the creation of a consolidated tape (a comprehensive record of both on-exchange and OTC trades),” Lansing added. “Given that that is still in process, more trading on-exchange will go a long way to promoting greater liquidity, price discovery and transparency.”

MiFID II is due to introduce mandatory reporting for ETFs but the new regulations covering European financial markets have been delayed by one year to 2018.

For the full article from MarketsMedia, please click here

A New Social Media ETF :$BUZ

Not to be confused with yet another social media ETF comprised of social media companies, the latest flavor in the creative world of exchange-traded funds is courtesy of ALPS Advisors and Sprott Asset Management; an ETF that tracks the performance of the BUZZ Social Media Insights Index, which in turn, identifies U.S. companies that rank highest in terms of  ‘positive public perception’ as measured by ‘the buzz’ on social media platforms.

The ticker symbol at NYSEArca is $BUZ, and while our very own MarketsMuse senior editor suggested  a better ticker symbol would be “BUZZ”,  that ticker is rumored to have been reserved by former NYMEX Chairman Richard Shaeffer in connection with his backing of Americanex Corp, an upstart electronic exchange platform for cannabis growers and distributors, and run by former Tullett Prebon FX broker Steve Janjic.

Still don’t get the value proposition of buying an ETF comprised of companies that inspire positive social media generated vibes via their brands? Especially when a single snarkly tweet from a much-followed celeb or political candidate (e.g. Trump) can cause a company’s share price to plunge in a nanosecond? MarketsMuse curators canvassed an assortment marcom experts who also understand the nuances of investing and the senior resident at   The JLC Group distilled the description of the ALPS ETF with this comment, “..the presumption presumably is that companies having a high rank insofar as perception (aka

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Canadian Exchanges Face-Off Over ETF Listings

Last week, Canadian upstart exchange Aequitas NEO announced its first ETF listing, and in response to that PR promotion, Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), a subsidiary of TMX Group fired back with a slapshot, thanks to TD Asset Management (TDAM) listing and launching six new ETFs.

(TradersMagazine) Executives from TD Asset Management opened trading of its new exchange traded fund business at the Toronto Stock Exchange. Last week, TDAM’s six new passive ETFs began trading on TSX, including products designed to track the performance of Canadian fixed income markets as well as Canadian, U.S. and international equities.

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Lou Eccleston, CEO TMX Group (photo via Bloomberg)

“TSX is proud to welcome TD Asset Management ETFs to our Exchange. TDAM has been a great sponsor of the industry and our firm for many years,” said Nick Thadaney, president & CEO, Global Equity Capital Markets, TMX Group.

He added, “We have a rich history in supporting the successful growth of the ETF marketplace and we remain committed to serving this segment into the future. ETFs have become a vital part of Canada’s markets and a great example of the dynamic and diverse products we offer to investors.”

To celebrate the listing on TSX, Tim Wiggan, CEO, TDAM, joined Thadaney to open trading this morning.

As of February 29, 2016, there were 384 ETFs and exchange traded notes listed on TSX with a combined market capitalization of over $98 billion.

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ETF Momentum for Canada Exchange Aequitas NEO

(TradersMagazine) The TSX is getting a run for its money. This week the Aequitas NEO Exchange (which only launched one year ago) signed its first listed security. Invesco Canada’s PowerShares DWA Global Momentum Index ETF, trading under the ticker DWG, took that honor and is also the first ETF listed on a Canadian exchange other than the TSX.

In a press release issued by the exchange, the company stated “DWG began trading on the NEO Exchange on Tuesday, March 22, 2016. The first week of trading was flawless and allowed market participants to confirm readiness. The quality of liquidity provision during these first days of trading was particularly notable.”

“Our first momentum-based ETF has been trading for over a week and we have been pleased with the early level of liquidity and investor interest,” said Chris Doll, Vice-President, Product & Business Strategy, PowerShares Canada. “We are very proud to celebrate this important milestone with the NEO Exchange. The idea of increasing competition in Canada makes perfect business sense to us. We are always looking for ways to be more efficient with our PowerShares ETF listings and we are strong believers in competition driving efficiency and innovation. As a shareholder, we have closely monitored the growth of the NEO Exchange since its launch, and with the development of our Global Momentum Index ETF, we determined the time was right to list on this new exchange.

About Aequitas NEO Exchange

The NEO Exchange is a new Canadian stock exchange using a bold new blueprint that puts investors, businesses looking to raise capital and dealers first. Launched in March 2015, the NEO Exchange currently offers an innovative trading venue and a value added listing venue for companies and investment products. Aequitas NEO Exchange Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Aequitas Innovations Inc., a company founded by a diverse group of prominent investors representative of all Canadian capital market stakeholders. For more information, please visit www.aequitasneoexchange.com

 

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BATS Global is Batty About ETFs-Buys ETF.com

While many people are “koo-koo for Cocoa Puffs”, BATS Global is batty about ETFs. On the heels of launching a dedicated electronic exchange platform for ETF products dubbed BATS Marketplace,  BATS Global Markets announced yesterday that is even more batty about ETFs and to prove it, the exchange operator is acquiring the ETF industry’s leading provider of exchange-traded fund news, data and analytics, ETF.com.

“This is a brand burnishing 201 case study for an otherwise staid electronic exchange industry as operators seek innovative, content-specific applications to distinguish themselves

(MarketWatch.com) Exchange operator BATS Global Markets said Tuesday it would buy ETF.com, a provider of data about the market for exchange-traded funds. BATS CEO Chris Concannon said the purchase “underscores [BATS’s] commitment to the ETF industry and our focus on providing unique, value-added content for issuers, brokers, financial advisors, market professionals and investors.”

ETF.com’s data will add to BATS’s existing proprietary market data and analytics offerings, according to a news release. BATS operates four stock exchanges in the U.S., which represent the largest venue for trading ETFs in the country when taken together, says BATS. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal is set to close on April 1, according to the statement. The acquisition comes as Lenexa, Kansas-based BATS is trying to grow its ETFs listing platform. The exchange operator last year launched BATS Marketplace, offering to pay ETF providers as much as $400,000 to list on its exchange.

BATS listed 30 new ETFs on its US market last year─11 in December alone, more than any other US market, officials say─bringing its total ETF listings to 56, says the deal will expand the proprietary market data and analytics that BATS offers to support market participants in making “educated trading nad investment decisions.” ETF.com will become an independent media subsidiary of BATS Global.

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Eaton Vance Launches Non-Transparent ETF aka “ETMF”

Eaton Vance Corp. today launched the first-ever non-transparent, actively-managed ETFs. Their new creation is called an exchange-traded managed fund (ETMF) and goes under the brand name NextShares.

Quite a coup considering last week’s MarketsMuse story “SEC Chair White Says I’ve Got a Dream” [for the SEC to actually read offering prospectus of complex ETFs before rubber-stamping their flotation in the market]. For those confused about what the heck a non-transparent, actively-managed exchange-traded fund is (and whether it is an appropriate investment vehicle for you/your clients), keeping reading..

ETMF-NextShares(Boston Globe)-Eaton Vance Corp.’s new experiment in exchange-traded funds — blending active stock-picking with the popular ETF structure of trading on a stock exchange — launched Friday morning.

The Boston-based investment firm’s new fund, called Eaton Vance Stock NextShares, a diversified stock portfolio, listed and begin trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Individuals, financial advisers and institutions can start trading in the shares Monday.

It’s been a long road for Eaton Vance to get regulatory approvals and bring this product to market in the crowded, $2 trillion ETF arena dominated by inexpensive, passive portfolios that mimic indexes like the Standard & Poor’s 500.

What is a non-transparent ETF??? Click Here To Find Out

And instead of launching a planned roster of new active ETFs, Eaton Vance is testing this one first, and aims to follow with others.

“The company was hoping to have more of a suite to offer on the first day or in the early innings,’’ said Stephen Tu, a senior analyst with Moody’s Analytics in New York.

The market may want to see how this ETF trades. It’s different from passive funds in that its holdings won’t be as transparent; investors won’t get to know what the fund owns every day.

And in order to get the full benefits of lower costs generally associated with ETFs, there have to be significant assets in the fund to make it easy and inexpensive to buy and sell.

For some, the NextShares concept is a kind of hail-Mary pass for the traditional, actively managed fund industry. The question is whether investors will embrace active management in this new package.

“The appetite in the marketplace right now is going towards vanilla ice cream,’’ Tu said, meaning passive ETFs. Likening traditional, active mutual funds to strawberry ice cream, he said, “whether it’s in a cone or a cup, you may not buy that strawberry ice cream.”