Tag Archives: Jessica toonkel

ETF News

Eaton Vance Ups ETMF Ante; Payment For Order Flow: Bounties For BrokerDealers

1 Comment

MarketsMuse ETF update profiles a novel “payment-for-order-flow” approach on the part of ETF issuers who vie to whoo broker-dealers to promote their products to investors. Eaton Vance Corp. said Thursday it may help brokerages foot the bill to make its new type of actively managed exchange-traded products, called NextShares, available to their clients. Below extract is courtesy of Reuters’ Jessica Toonkel reporting

In an unprecedented move, Eaton Vance Corp will offer to help some brokerages pay their technology costs to make the fund company’s new breed of exchange-traded managed funds (ETMFs) available to investors, Tom Faust, Eaton’s chief executive officer, told Reuters this week. ETMFs are a hybrid between actively managed mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.

The Boston-based company also plans to pay brokerage firms a share of the revenues from the sale of the funds, which Faust hopes will be available by year-end.

BrokerDealer.com maintains the world’s largest database of broker-dealers and encompasses brokerdealer firms based in nearly 3 dozen countries

Tom Faust, Eaton Vance
Tom Faust, Eaton Vance

Big-name firms like Fidelity Investments and TD Ameritrade told Reuters they will not sell the funds until they see demand.

Helping to cover technology costs of distributors is new, but so are the Eaton Vance products, which require brokerages to take a new kind of order from investors, experts said.

“This is the first time I have ever heard of a firm offering to pay some brokerage costs for a new product,” said Ben Johnson, an ETF analyst at Morningstar.

He said the cost of gearing up to sell the product has been a sticking point for brokers. However, a number of executives at brokerage firms and industry consultants told Reuters that questions about whether there will be investor demand, and how they will get compensated to sell the new products, are even bigger issues that could keep them from selling the funds even with the Eaton Vance offer on the table.

Faust said figuring out the economic incentives and getting the systems up and running is top of mind for Eaton Vance.

“The biggest challenge we see at this stage of the game is getting broker dealers,” Faust said. “If we are looking to launch before the end of the year, we need the broker dealers to start making systems changes and otherwise preparing themselves to offer this to clients.”

Eight outside fund managers, including Mario J. Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors Inc., have licensed the right to sell NextShares. But large broker-dealers have not yet indicated that they’re taking the steps to offer them to financial advisers.

Investors will need to be informed by broker-dealers of the unique qualities of the funds when they trade, and they will place exchange orders in a way that differs from stocks or ETFs.

For the full article from Reuters, please click here

ETF News, Fixed Income

New Rules: SEC Set to Level Playing Field for ETF Issuers

Leave a comment

Are you beginning to wonder why there is an avalanche of news stories profiling corporate bond ETFs? As we’ve posted here at MarketsMuse.com, one good reason might be rising concerns that when interest rates tick up and bond prices tick down, there could be a rush to the exits on the part of investment managers seeking to sell their corporate bond ETFs (or looking to sell select ETFs so as to hedge portfolio exposure in underlying issues held by these managers). Reuters’ Jessica Toonkel and Ashley Lau touch on that topic in recent story profiling a plan on the part of the SEC to “level the playing field” for newer firms entering the ETF Issuer club.

Here’s the extract:

By Jessica Toonkel and Ashley Lau

Reuters – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission may strip Vanguard Group, BlackRock Inc and State Street Corp, the oldest and biggest providers of exchange-traded funds, of an advantage they hold over newer rivals in how they assemble the shares of their funds, said sources familiar with the SEC.

etf-issuer-sec-level-playing-fieldsBut BlackRock, Vanguard and a few others, who were among the first to apply with the SEC to create ETFs, are allowed greater leeway: if they need a difficult-to-find security to create shares of their funds, they are permitted to use a similar security – not necessarily the same one – in the fund. This greater flexibility makes it easier and cheaper to run the older funds, and harder for newer entrants into the market such as Northern Trust, Van Eck Global and Charles Schwab Corp to compete.

The agency’s tentative plan – still in its early stages – would affect how companies manage their portfolios in illiquid markets, such as bonds. It may result in allowing the likes of Schwab to compete better with their older rivals, as well as manage their existing bond products at a lower cost.

The agency’s tentative plan – still in its early stages – would affect how companies manage their portfolios in illiquid markets, such as bonds. It may result in allowing the likes of Schwab to compete better with their older rivals, as well as manage their existing bond products at a lower cost.

For the full story from Reuters’ Jessica Toonkel and Ashley Lau, please click here