ETF Express spoke to F/m Investments this week about their application to the SEC to open a mutual fund version of their US Benchmark Series ETFs. The move seems counter intuitive after the last few years’ worth of mutual fund to ETF conversions, but Alex Morris, F/m’s president and CIO, explains that mutual funds might have lots of complications compared with the newer and more flexible ETF, but they are the easier route for investors planning their retirement using a 401 (k).
The firm tried to ‘eat its own cooking’ and found that it was really hard to use its own ETFs in its own 401 (k).
We also spoke to Calastone’s Brian Godins on their move into ETFs, offering what it calls the next generation ETF Order Management system with HSBC for the launch of its platform, and announcing that ETFs will be increasingly joining their mutual fund cousins to digitalise the fund distribution, administration and issuance processes.
“It’s worth referencing that in the ETF world, the focus for Calastone is providing solutions for the primary market processes and flows, as opposed to the secondary market. Godins says. “We are able to build the microservices required at pace based on the multi-year investment we have already made in DMI, so our time to market is pretty impressive, and getting faster.”
ETF Express and its sister title Institutional Asset Manager carried news this week of the launch of an ETF in the US from the Man Group’s AHL franchise with American Beacon which puts the active into active ETFs. The American Beacon AHL Trend ETF is designed to “proactively manage risk while attempting to capitalise on price trends” covering more than 20 of the most liquid global markets across stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies through the use of derivatives.
Both Institutional Asset Manager and ETF Express are currently running awards.
To nominate in the Institutional Asset Manager awards please click here.
The ETF Express US Awards voting period will end next Friday, the 15th September. To vote now please click here.
Beverly Chandler, Managing Editor
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