US-based asset manager Toroso Investments and white label exchange-traded fund (ETF) platform Exchange Traded Concepts, have launched the ETF Industry Exposure & Financial Services ETF. The fund provides investors with access to companies driving and participating in the growth of the ETF industry. The new ETF tracks the Toroso ETF Industry Index, which is designed to provide exposure to the publicly traded companies that derive revenue from the ETF industry, including ETF sponsors, index and data companies, trading and custody providers, liquidity providers and exchanges. The fund will seek to tap into the substantial growth experienced within the industry in recent years - over the past five years, ETF assets under management have grown in the US from US$1.2trn to US$2.7tn and the number of US ETF sponsors has increased from 45 to 78.

The index, which is maintained by Solactive, is designed with four tiers of constituents:

- Tier 1 accounts for 50% of the index's exposure and is made up of companies with substantial participation in the ETF industry, providing direct financial impact to shareholders, including BlackRock, Charles Schwab, Invesco, State Street, WisdomTree, and more.

- Tier 2 accounts for 25% of the index's exposure and is made up of companies with substantial participation in the ETF industry, providing indirect financial impact to shareholders, including KCG Holdings, NASDAQ, Intercontinental Exchange, and more.

- Tier 3 accounts for 15% of the index's exposure and is made up of companies with moderate levels of participation in industry, including Bank of New York Mellon, US Bancorp, FactSet, Ameriprise Financial, and more.

- Tier 4 accounts for 10% of the index's exposure and is made up of companies that are new or participating in a smaller way in the ETF industry relative to their overall focus, including Morningstar, Eaton Vance, Goldman Sachs, Legg Mason, Citigroup, and more.

Constituents within each tier are equal-weighted. There are 37 securities across the entire ETF with the largest holdings being CBOE, Invesco and MSCI with 6.4% each, followed by S&P Global, BlackRock, State Street, Charles Schwab and WisdomTree which each hold an approximate 6% weighting. The index is overseen by a committee made up of industry veterans, including Mike Venuto; Guillermo Trias, CEO of Toroso Investments; Linda Zhang, Founder of Purview Investments; Kris Monaco, Founder of Level ETF Ventures; and Kevin Carter, Founder of Big Tree Capital. Collectively, the committee has decades of ETF industry experience covering a range of functions including index creation, ETF portfolio construction, investment management, distribution, research, trading and more. The ETF has an annual cost of 0.64%.

BNP Paribas Arbitrage Issuance has launched eight new exchange traded commodities (ETCs) on Xetra and Börse Frankfurt. The new ETCs provide access to Rogers International Commodity Enhanced Indices (RICI) commodity index family. The ETCs give investors access to the performance of industrial and precious metals as well as to the energy sector. The reference indices from the Rogers International Commodity Enhanced index family track the respective futures contracts with varying maturities. The limited term of the futures contracts requires a switch prior to expiry in exchange for a futures contract with the next expiry date (rollover). Possible rollover losses are minimised through an optimised procedure for selecting futures contracts. The indices are denominated in US dollars and rebalanced semi-annually.

The French bank has also launched two new ETCs on Xetra and Frankfurt exchanges, each providing exposure to the performance of Brent crude oil futures contracts. The addition of commodities to a traditional stock/bond portfolio has historically made it more efficient by enhancing return for each level of risk. The ETCs offer a means of gaining relatively low-cost and convenient tactical exposure to crude oil, allowing investors to express their views on the market.

Additionally, due to the low correlation of commodities with other major asset classes, the ETCs may suit investors looking to diversify their portfolios. The addition of commodities to a traditional stock/bond portfolio has historically made portfolios more 'efficient' by enhancing portfolio return for each level of risk. The BNP Paribas Brent Crude Oil ETC, which trades in euros, enables investors to participate in the performance of underlying ICE Brent Crude futures contracts denominated in US dollars. The ETC currently tracks a contract which expires in June 2017 and specifies physical delivery of the crude oil with the option of cash settlement. The ETC has a total expense ratio (TER) of 0.90%.

Deutsche Börse's product range in its ETFs and exchange traded products (ETPs) segment currently comprises 1,149 ETFs, 211 ETCs and 132 exchange-traded notes (ETNs). This selection, together with an average monthly trading volume of around €13 billion, makes Xetra Europe's leading trading venue.

Wear Exchange Traded Funds has revealed that its Wearables Technology ETF launched by Eve Capital and Exchange Traded Concepts (ETC) Services last year has delivered a quarterly return of 9.4% on March 31, 2017 and rose 10.33% since its inception on December 9, 2016. The Wear ETF is based on the Wearables Index, an index developed by EQM Indexes, and has an expense ratio of 0.85 percent. Wear seeks to capture the growth from within the wearable technology segment, including the relatively new segment of companies that produce watches, health trackers, medical applications, body cameras, GPS enabled child tracking wristbands, employee health trackers, Google glasses and other wearable devices.

The underlying index also follows a modified equal weighting methodology where constituents are equal-weighted but core holdings are subject to a multiplier of 1.5 times the equal weight. The core holdings include securities of wearable tech companies that derive significant revenues from the sale of wearable devices, along with "non-core" holdings or those securities of wearable technology companies that derive minimal revenue from the sale of wearables. According to EQM Indexes, sub-sectors include display, healthcare/medical, industrial/military, infotainment/lifestyle, semiconductors, sensors and sports/fitness. The fund includes notable companies such as Apple at 3%, Fitbit at 1.66%, Garmin at 3.07%, Boston Scientific at 2.63%, GoPro at 2.65% and Seiko at 3.07% among others. The underlying index also includes a hefty US weight, along with other markets including Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland and Taiwan.

The wearables industry is expected to grow to US$19bn by 2018 as products like Fitbit fitness trackers, Android Wear watches and the Apple Watch helped fuel a rise in mainstream awareness of wearable technologies, according to a recent whitepaper published by Juniper Research.

Canada-based Mackenzie Investments has received final approval from the country's securities regulators to launch a fixed income ETF on Aequitas NEO Exchange. The Mackenzie Global High Yield Fixed Income ETF will be the fifth fund in Mackenzie Investment's series of active fixed income ETFs and is expected to begin trading today, April 26, 2017.

The Mackenzie Global High Yield Fixed Income ETF will seek income and capital appreciation by investing in global high yield bonds. The ETF, which will pick securities from within the global high yield universe, aims to provide a steady flow of income with the potential for long-term capital growth to help meet cash-flow and investment goals. According to Mackenzie Investments, the fund's manager will apply disciplined criteria including rigorous credit analysis, and ongoing assessment of relative and absolute valuations to help uncover the most attractive risk-adjusted opportunities within the high yield asset class.

The fund, which will have a management expense ratio of 0.60%, will be Mackenzie Investment's first listing on NEO Exchange. With this launch, Mackenzie Investments becomes the fifth ETF provider to list on NEO. The new listing will join 13 ETFs which began trading on NEO in 2016 and 2017, bringing the total number of NEO ETF listings to 30.

BlackRock's iShares has launched two new smart beta equity ETFs on Deutsche Börse's Xetra and Frankfurt exchanges. The iShares Edge MSCI World Minimum Volatility Ucits ETF EUR Hedged tracks the MSCI World Minimum Volatility Index which seeks to reduce volatility compared to standard market-capitalisation-weighted indices. The index reflects a managed-volatility equity strategy that employs a minimum-variance approach to achieve lower total risk, measured by standard deviation, than its parent index, the MSCI World Index, while maintaining close tracking and similar characteristics. The fund follows an optimised replication methodology, which helps increase liquidity and reduce implementation, maintenance and replication costs. It may suit investors who are seeking a low cost, globally diversified equity portfolio but are particularly interested in minimizing the variability of the fund's total returns. This ETF has a total expense ratio (TER) of 0.35%

The iShares Edge MSCI World Multifactor Ucits ETF EUR Hedged tracks the MSCI World Diversified Multi-Factor Index which selects companies from the MSCI World index based on four factors: company value (measured using price/earnings, price/book and enterprise value/operating cash flow), momentum (measured by share price performance), size (measured by market capitalisation) and quality (measured by return on equity, level of debt and earnings volatility). Constituent weights are optimized to maximize the exposure to the above factors. The fund has a TER of 0.55%.

Both ETFs minimise the exchange rate risk between the US dollar and the euro by adopting a monthly currency hedge.

US ETF provider VanEck has launched the VanEck Vectors JP Morgan EM Local Currency Bond UCITS ETF on the London Stock Exchange, offering exposure to bonds issued in local currencies by emerging market governments. The fund tracks the JP Morgan GBI-EMG Core Index, a reference for the performance of bonds issued in local currencies by 16 emerging market governments: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Thailand, Turkey, and South Africa. The fund trades in US dollars. The index is market-cap weighted and rebalanced monthly, with individual country exposure capped at 10% to enhance diversification. A country floor of 3% is also applied. There are over 200 holdings in the index; the ETF itself holds 80 securities as it pursues a sampled replication approach to index tracking. Bonds from Brazil, Poland, Indonesia and Mexico each make up approximately the maximum allowable weighting of 10% in the ETF, while South Africa (9.1%), Turkey (7.0%) and Colombia (6.8%) make up the next largest country exposures. Investors may be surprised to learn that the majority of the ETF's holdings are of investment grade quality (55.6%), composed of bonds rated 'A' (23.5%) and 'BBB' (32.1%). Bonds rated 'BB' make up 16.6% while a portion of unrated bonds accounts for 17.9%.

According to VanEck, the ETF may suit investors seeking higher income opportunities as the index's current yield to maturity is 6.4%. The index's effective duration is 5.0 years and is up 6.4% year to date (data as of 20 April 2017). The fund has a total expense ratio (TER) of 0.47%. It is the fourth Ucits ETF offered under the VanEck Vectors brand. The firm has announced its intention to roll the fund out on further European stock exchanges in the near future. VanEck is hoping to replicate the success of its US-listed counterpart - the VanEck Vectors JP Morgan EM Local Currency Bond ETF which was launched in July 2010 and has grown its assets under management to over US$3.3bn.

Assets invested in ETFs/ETPs listed in Europe have reached a new record high of US$640bn at the end Q1 2017 surpassing the prior record of US$620bn set at the end of February 2017, according to research and consultancy firm ETFGI. ETFs and ETPs listed in Europe gathered net inflows of US$11.36bn in March marking the 31st month of positive net new asset flows. Year to date, net inflows stand at US$35.3bn. At this point last year there were net inflows of US$10.97bn, according to preliminary data from ETFGI's Q1 2017 global ETF and ETP industry insights report. At the end of March 2017, the European ETF/ETP industry had 2,241 ETFs/ETPs, with 7,055 listings, assets of US$640bn, from 59 providers listed on 26 exchanges in 21 countries. 


Equity ETFs/ETPs gathered net inflows of US$6.64bn in March, bringing year to date net inflows to US$21.23bn, which is greater than the net outflows of US$3.58bn over the same period last year. In March European equity ETFs/ETPs gathered the largest net inflows with US$2.34bn, followed by ETFs/ETPs providing exposure to North American equity indices with US$2.26bn, and global equity ETFs/ETPs with US$1.24bn, while developed Asia Pacific equity ETFs/ETPs experienced the largest net outflows with US$329m. Fixed income ETFs and ETPs experienced net inflows of US$2.99bn in March, growing year to date net inflows to US$7.82bn, which is less than the same period last year which saw net inflows of US$9.21bn. Commodity ETFs/ETPs accumulated net inflows of US$1.34bn in March. Year to date, net inflows are at US$4.7bn, compared to net inflows of US$4.42bn over the same period last year.

iShares gathered the largest net ETF/ETP inflows in March with US$3.01bn, followed by db x/db ETC with US$1.64bn and UBS ETFs with US$1.54bn in net inflows. In Q1, iShares gathered the largest net ETF/ETP inflows with US$10.20bn, followed by Lyxor AM with US$4.60bn and UBS ETFs with US$3.82bn net inflows.