Funds Hub
Money managers under the microscope
Rude health, and a changing of the guard?
By Detlef Glow, Head of EMEA Research at Lipper. The views expressed are his own.
The European exchange-traded-fund (ETF) industry has shown some resilience in the face of questions about management practices raised by market observers like the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and regulatory bodies like the FSA in the UK.
The segment grew by 7.74 percent over the first seven month of 2011, with assets under management up by 17.20 billion euros to reach 239.37 billion.
This has come as some critics have characterised ETFs as a systemic risk for financial markets, due to the use of swaps to replicate the underlying index. Another risk that has been highlighted was the liquidity of some securities accepted as collateral to secure the positions in derivatives and for security lending strategies. Also raised was the outstanding short volume in some ETFs.
But as the ETF industry is fully regulated by market authorities and uses typical techniques for derivatives and securities-lending strategies, the risks highlighted are already known. In addition, the assets under management of the global ETF industry are still less than ten percent of the total, and the issues might be better raised with respect to all funds, instead of pointing the finger at one market segment.
Despite publicity surrounding these issues, and in contrast to the expectations of some market observers, the industry has shown a pretty normal growth pattern in terms of newly-launched funds, with 167 new products hitting the market during the first half of 2011. Most of those were equity funds (102), with commodity funds a significant minority (22).
from Reuters Money:
The year’s best and worst ETFs
The best investments often don't have the highest returns. I know this is heresy to most, yet mass behavior can be a siren song.
About this time every year, we gaze intently at our portfolios, hoping against hope that we did something right. Sometimes we get lucky.
Two years ago, we didn't even want to open the envelope containing the bad tidings of the market meltdown. I kept my mutual fund statements sealed that year.
This year, there's some palpably good news to spread around, although it doesn't necessarily involve the best-performing investments.
Unfortunately, those who noted and invested in the best performers in ETFs recently are doing exactly the wrong thing. They are loading up in overheated funds when the general consensus is that this is the right thing to do. As previous market manias have proven, "the lemming effect" is something that millions of investors routinely forget or ignore.
Case in point are the sizzling returns of the most-popular ETFs this year. The iShares Gold Trust (IAU), with a three-year return of almost 20 percent (year-to-date as of Dec. 13), was one of the darlings of the precious metals crowd. The SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), iShares Silver Trust (SLV) and Powershares DB Precious Metals ETF (DBP) were not far behind.
As economic klaxons sound alerts about the troubled Euro and Dollar, investors have herded into precious metals with abandon. The SPDR Gold Shares fund alone has grown to more than $54 billion in assets.
