Caisse chimes in on Rona deal
Invesco, Caisse make their positions known on Lowe's takeover.
- August 1, 2012 September 13, 2019
- 17:52
Invesco, Caisse make their positions known on Lowe's takeover.
Canadian equities let pension funds down in Q2
Although ESMA's new guidelines cover Europe only, they could prove a game changer for the ETF industry, where providers argue revenues from securities lending help keep costs low for investors.
U.S. ETF providers are working hard to try and crack the DC market, with Charles Schwab getting ready to launch an all-ETF 410K next year. But it's been an uphill battle and the market is just on the cusp of opening up. Some say it's about time and that passive strategies like ETFs and index funds make a lot of sense for CAP plan providers, especially from a fiduciary perspective.
While ABCP has been virtually wiped off the Canadian map, the notion behind it wasn’t half bad – AAA-rated investments based on steady streams of loan payments sure seem like a good option for parking cash, especially given the state of the government bond market today. Which is why the covered bond market is getting a bit more attention these days, especially in the ETF space where ProShares has launched the first ever U.S. covered bond ETF with dollar-denominated covered bonds from non-US banks.
While cap weights continue to rule in the index space, not all investors are happy with the status quo. Size bias is becoming a big concern for investors who increasingly recognize the shortcomings of market cap weighted indices, which can overweight a portfolio with big stocks.
At what point is an emerging market no longer “emerging”? It’s a question investors have been asking for some time especially given indexing behemoth MSCI’s tendancy to classify some countries as emerging when they’ve clearly crossed the border into developed territory. Which is why one ETF firm has filed regulatory paperwork to launch three separate emerging markets funds titled towards small and midsized companies.
A little over a decade ago, pension funds could rely on allocations to government bonds to help fund their liabilities and manage risk. However, the fallout from the 2008 Financial Crisis combined with punishingly low yields on government bonds have fundamentally changed the role that sovereign debt plays in a pension portfolio.
Study of institutions and corporations suggests that inflation-linked corporate bonds are good substitute for sovereign debt
Last week BlackRock tightened its securities lending standards by setting a new 50% limit on the amount of assets that its ETFs can lend.