BlackRock

According to Mark Wiedman, global head of iShares, “Fixed income markets are the next big frontier for the ETF industry.” Much like ETFs have transformed commodity markets such as gold, Wiedman expects ETFs will transform the fixed income markets. Assets are projected to double in fixed income markets over the next 5 years, from just under [...]

iShares has launched eight country-specific sovereign debt ETFs on the London Stock Exchange, the first ETFs of their kind. The treasury bond ETFs include the countries of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Finland, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The ETFs will be invested in government issued debt. For original article, click here.

Global Bond ETF assets rose 4.1% in November to more than $1.5 trillion, according to a report from BlackRock Investment Institute. The total number of global ETF products including ETNs reached 4,200. For original article, click here.

This week iShares launched a new emerging markets ETF, ticker EEMS,  which is intended to track the MSCI Emerging Markets Small Cap Index.  The top three countries represented in terms of holding are currenty Taiwan, Korea, and China. The top three country sector exposure weightings are currently consumer discretionary, industrials, and financials. For original article, [...]

The 401(k) retirement market is quickly approaching $3 trillion in invested assets. This market has been dominated with mutual funds; however, the largest ETF issuer BlackRock is making significant strides in bringing ETFs into the retirement world. Chip Castille, head of BlackRock explains, “It’s been a slow, gradual build-out. But all of the major back-office [...]

Reported today by AsiaOneBusiness, from a media briefing held yesterday by BlackRock, Global ETF trading volume is rapidly on the rise, with a 27% rise reported from December, 2010 to February, 2011. Three areas of fund flows highlighted in Singapore were in fixed income, commodities, and country specific ETFs. Globally,ETF fund flows have continued to [...]

Rising oil prices have pushed up returns offered by energy based ETFs even as ETFs tracking crude oil prices have lagged behind. Prices are rising on account of political disturbance in Libya and East and North Africa and investors are preferring energy ETFs over oil based ETFs. Market forces prevent the latter from tracking the [...]

BlackRock’s iShares has now listed the Dow Jones Global Sustainability Screened fund and Europe Sustainability Screened fund on the LSE. Both the funds are backed by physical storage of products and are not based on value of the underlying index alone. Further, the two ETFs offer access to the sustainable sector to Europeans as well. [...]

The world’s largest ETF provider, Black Rock’s iShares, has filed to open two new quant strategy funds.  With almost $600 billion under management, this move represents a departure from their more straightforward index-based products.The goal is to reduce losses from the stock markets’ worst periods by using mathematical techniques developed by index provider MSCI Inc.  [...]

According to the Financial times on Tuesday,  BlackRock plans to launch an in-house trading platform next year and is hiring programmers and other staff for the launch. Being the world’s largest money manager, this new platform would compete with many Wall Street firms. Setting up an internal trading platform could allow the company to lower [...]