The move towards producing more actively managed ETFs through limiting the vehicle’s famed transparency has taken one step further with the SEC’s exemptive relief granted to non-transparent ETFs.
It’s a first but significant step for active managers and a boost to the ETF industry, says Rob Owens, Managing Director of SEI’s Investment Manager Services division in this week’s interview from Philippa Aylmer.
In other news, BlackRock has reported that according to their analysis, the proportion of UK wealth portfolios invested in index funds and ETFs will grow by 50 per cent over the next two years.
If more active funds are able to remodel as ETFs in Europe as well, this figure can only grow. And as more volatile times lie ahead, investors will want a wider range of choices of investments.
Markets can’t go up for ever, as Allan Lane comments in his column this month, reviewing JP Morgan’s family of ultra-short duration fixed income ETFs. According to Algo-Chain’s latest analysis of their Model Portfolio benchmarking platform, the mid-year performance numbers are simply eye watering. Lane writes that in both GBP and in EUR, their league tables see many portfolios returning 15 per cent or more year-to-date. It seems we might have just lived through the strongest six-month rally in a generation or so, he warns.
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Beverly Chandler,
Managing Editor, ETFexpress
