A number of new product launches last week, two of which are thematic in nature which seems to be a growing trend globally in the ETF world. Flow data is starting to roll in for the month of August showing a continued record year for inflows.

ETF Launches and Updates

Rize Launches Two New ETFs on the LSE. Rize, an issuer of specialist thematic exchange-traded funds (ETFs), has launched two new products for the London Stock Exchange.

The Sustainable Future of Food (FOOD) and Education Tech and Digital Learning (LERN) Ucits ETFs, both of which the firm said are the ‘first of their kind’ in Europe, were admitted to trading at the London Stock Exchange yesterday. Both ETFs are priced at 0.45% per annum. Full article here

State Street Global Advisors has expanded its SPDR ETF range with a global value fund, the SPDR MSCI World Value UCITS ETF which includes large and mid-cap securities across 23 developed markets. The ETF is now available on the London Stock Exchange in both USD and GBP with a total expense ratio of 0.25%. Full article here

Tabula Investment Management entered the Italian market last week with the listing of its investment grade bond ETF, the Tabula iTraxx Europe IG Bond UCITS ETF (TTRX). This is the fifteenth European country TTRX has been listed in and since its inception in January 2020, TTRX has accumulated $120m in assets under management. Full Article Here

Vanguard launches three new bond ETFs on Xetra and Börse Frankfurt. The three new bond funds are as follows:

· Vanguard UK Gilt UCITS ETF EUR hedged – Acc

· The Vanguard USD Treasury Bond UCITS ETF EUR hedged – Acc

· Vanguard USD Corporate Bond UCITS ETF EUR hedged – Acc

Full Article Here

Flows and Performance

Global leverage and inverse ETFs reached a record USD89.64bn at the end of July

Leveraged and Inverse ETFs and ETPs gathered net inflows of $203 million during July and YTD gathered net inflows of $20.56 billion according to ETFGI.

At the end of July 2020, the Global leveraged/inverse ETF/ETP industry had 875 ETFs/ETPs. Of these 875 ETFs/ETPs, 445 were leveraged products, while 213 were inverse listings, and 217 were Leveraged/Inverse. Full Article Here

In the United States — Strong ETF Inflows Continue in August

ETF asset flows during August saw a gain of more than $30 billion bringing the year to date total to $282.7 billion, blowing away last year’s corresponding YTD inflow of $147.9 billion.

U.S. fixed income pulled in more than any other asset class during the month, at $13.4 billion, followed by international equity, which gained $9.3 billion. U.S. equities pulled in just $1.5 billion. Full Flow Details and Rankings

Noteworthy

In the United States — work from home ETF passes $100 million

New thematic entrant, the Direxion Work From Home ETF (Ticker: WFH) has joined the hard to reach $100 million AUM mark within just 3 months. The well-timed launch combined with investors believing in the work from theme has helped the fund reach such a milestone. WFH is up 15.74% since inception. Full Article Here

In Asia – Business in Mainland China Continues to Grow.

Citigroup has become the first US bank to receive a fund custody licence in China, allowing it to provide a core service to global asset managers as they rush to participate in the opening up of the country’s financial sector.

The licence will allow Citi to act as a custodian bank and hold securities on behalf of mutual and private funds in China.

Foreign financial services companies and their governments have for the past 20 years been lobbying Beijing for greater participation in its domestic market.

Vanguard also said last week that it would transfer its regional headquarters from Hong Kong to Shanghai and relocate staff. It said in a statement that the company’s “future focus in Asia is on mainland China”.

Over the weekend, BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, announced it had received approval to run its own mutual fund business in China. FT