ETF.com Analysis

Matt - you are right on the money - as always. Just kidding. Actually, though, you are right about the index industry's tendency to passionately debate topics that no one else cares about.

I spent part of last week in New York attending the Journal of Indexes editorial board meeting and the S&P 500 50th anniversary birthday bash. Both were great events, and gave me a lot of insight into what index developers are thinking about these days.

The Russell deal with the ICE can be spun a million ways and has all kinds of implications, but at it’s core, it is about da money:  $50 million in cash upfront ... 7 year deal…possible backend bringing the total to over $100 million.  Here’s the SEC filing.

The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) stuck its thumb in the eye of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) this morning, announcing a deal for the exclusive rights to trade futures and options on futures on the full suite of Russell indexes. 

I decided to take a look at valuations in the asset management space to get a feel for how the rumored purchase price of Rydex stacks up.

Matt - you had some interesting comments on valuations, but from what I heard about the Rydex sale, the levels you're talking about seem to be holding.  How does $1 billion sound to you?  In cash. 

You mention that seed money is drying up in the ETF space, Jim, and that’s true: we’ve seen funds like the HealthShares launch with as little as $2.5 million in seed money. A few years ago, that would have been $25 million, easy.

I received a note last night from a panelist mentioning that in our FRA conference today in New York, we might want to talk about the issue discussed in Diya Gullapalli's recent WJS article - no seed money for new ETFs - and how that has shifted the industry.