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By Olivier Sciales, Chevalier & Sciales – The approval of the UCITS V directive by the European Parliament shortly before its dissolution for elections last month has ensured that the latest iteration of the European legislative framework for the cross-border marketing and distribution of retail investment funds will not be held hostage to second thoughts by the new membership of the assembly.
The directive approved by the parliament in plenary session on April 15 is relatively limited in scope, covering depositary functions, remuneration policies and sanctions. More fundamental changes may come in the future from what will become UCITS VI.
Companies such as Guaranty Trust Bank, Zenith Bank and Nigerian Breweries have put Nigeria at the forefront of frontier market opportunities, according to Baring Asset Management.
Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria, recently rebased its GDP upwards to USD500 billion for 2013, ranking the country as the 26th largest economy in the world1, and the forthcoming general elections in 2015 could provide further opportunities for investors in a country undergoing significant reforms.
Nigeria represents 13.2 per cent of the Baring Frontier Markets Fund, the largest single country holding, followed by Saudi Arabia (9.7 per cent), Kuwait (9.6 per cent) and the
The Velocimetrics solution has been integrated with private financial cloud provider Options’ ultra low latency product offering, Velocity.
The new Options-Velocimetrics solution will enable clients to instantly gain a detailed understanding of their trading performance, through real-time latency monitoring, problem detection, alerts and rapid issue analysis.
Velocimetrics’ monitoring technology delivers visibility across the complete trading environment, tracking the exact route and latency of trading events through business critical software applications, integrated systems and across global networks.
Options’ clients will gain a comprehensive view of their firm’s trading activities, real-time detection, alerting and diagnosis of issues and analysis of
Barchart has launches several application programming interfaces (APIs) through its Barchart OnDemand service, designed to serve the commodity futures industry including agricultural, energy, metals and softs markets.
Barchart OnDemand is a cloud-based service developed for accessing and delivering market data and information using web services. It is built upon the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure and features the ability to easily access an extensive amount of market data and information.
As an on-demand web service, the new APIs make access to market data easy and efficient.
The new APIs include:
• getWeekly_ShortDatedFuturesOptions: Provides access to market data for
Morgan Stanley this week announced the launch of a new ETF, the MS Scientific Beta Global Equity Factors UCITS ETF on its FundLogic platform.
The ETF provides exposure to the Scientific Beta Developed Multi-Beta Multi-Strategy Equal-Weight Index and is the first ETF to be launched between Morgan Stanley and ERI Scientific Beta. Its inclusion on the FundLogic platform demonstrates the depth of interest in smart beta products that continues to build among institutional investors.
“We are pleased to provide UCITS investors with access to the Scientific Beta Developed Multi-Beta Multi-Strategy Equal-Weight Index. The Index was devised by ERI Scientific
The EU has published MiFID II in the Official Journal (OJ) following more than two and a half years of consultation and negotiation.
Publication in the OJ sets the date on which MiFID II enters into force as 2 July 2014.
The rules enter into effect 30 months later, meaning that all EU firms undertaking investment business or providing investment services to clients must be fully compliant with MiFID II by 2 January 2017.
Crispian Lord, financial services risk and regulatory partner at PwC, says: “Although final detailed rules will not be available until the end of 2015,
Liffe reached a daily volume record of 205,570 contracts in MSCI World Net Total Return (NTR) Euro Index futures on 11 June 2014.
The previous record of 197,264 contracts was set on 14 March 2014.
Liffe has the widest derivatives franchise based on MSCI indices with more than 60 futures and options contracts and is further developing products based on MSCI geographic, sector and factor indices across emerging and developed markets.
In addition to the flagship MSCI World, MSCI Emerging Markets and MSCI Europe index futures, ICE and Liffe offer benchmark futures and options based on an extensive
Exhilway has exited “risky" hedge fund business by reassigning the operational rights to a large private investor group in Australia in lieu of market linked variable royalty, payable every year by the investor group.
The deal will not result in any instantaneous cash flows for Exhilway.
Exhilway, which has been a hedge fund player since 1974 with automated trading systems, is now looking to set up new market neutral funds focusing on the emerging markets of Morocco, Hungary, India, Brazil and China along with the developed markets of US and Europe.
Exhilway now plans to focus on investing
The London Metal Exchange (LME) has appointed Walid Al Attar as a member of its Aluminium Committee.
Al Attar, responsible for marketing and sales at Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), is the first representative from the Middle East to sit on the committee.
“We welcome Mr Al Attar to the committee,” says Garry Jones, LME CEO and vice chairman of the Aluminium Committee. “The Middle East is an increasingly significant region for the global aluminium industry, so it is appropriate that it is represented on the committee, which essentially acts as a sounding board for the LME’s global strategy in
The gross return of the SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Performance Index for May 2014 measured 1.04 per cent.
Hedge fund flows, meanwhile, as measured by the SS&C GlobeOp Capital Movement Index, advanced 1.01 per cent in June.
“Net flows increased slightly for June, reaching their highest levels in four months,” says Bill Stone, chairman and chief executive officer, SS&C Technologies.
The SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Performance Index is an asset-weighted, independent monthly window on hedge fund performance. On the ninth business day of each month it provides a flash estimate of the gross aggregate performance of funds for
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