With China’s domestic exchange-traded funds industry growing at breakneck speed and its Mainland equity market steadily opening up to foreign investors, innovation surrounding Chinese indices has been a major theme so far this year. European index provider Stoxx, which earlier this year launched the market-capitalisation-weighted Stoxx China A 50 Index, has continued this theme with the introduction of the Stoxx China A 50 Equal Weight Index.

Cambria Investment Management has added to its exchange-traded fund line-up with the launch of the actively managed Cambria Shareholder Yield ETF (SYLD). The fund, which has been listed on the NYSE Arca, is composed of US stocks that have historically ranked among the highest in paying cash dividends, engaging in share buybacks and paying down debt – three factors collectively known as “shareholder yield.”

So far this year low-volatility exchange-traded funds have been among the industry’s best selling products, pulling in some $6.5 billion in net new assets in the first quarter. In keeping with this theme, S&P Dow Jones has continued the build out of its low-volatility index family with the launch of the S&P Korea Low Volatility Index. The new index seeks to measure the performance of the 50 least volatile stocks in the S&P Korea BMI.

By David Stevenson – Despite all the grim news surrounding gold, I find myself looking afresh at gold mining equity funds and wondering whether now is the time to start quietly increasing my exposure. In essence, investors face two equally dismal choices. Do they focus on investing with an active fund manager who will “know” which miners to back or do they invest in a passive ETF? The second equally lethal choice is whether they should back larger lower-cost miners or junior miners where the rewards could be huge?

FTSE Group, a London-based global index provider, has revealed that assets under management in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) linked to the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Global Real Estate Index Series have surpassed $10 billion. The index series is one of the most widely followed gauges of property and real estate investment trust (REIT) performance and has been adopted by numerous ETF sponsors, including iShares, Lyxor, Deutsche Bank and First Trust.

Global short and leveraged exchange-traded product (ETP) assets rose by $4.4bn in the first four months of 2013, to $48.5bn, according to data released by Boost ETP. The growth in assets is a reflection, in part, of the increased breadth and depth of products available, improved education and understanding, and a general move by investors towards more transparent, exchange-traded products.

Source, a London-based provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), has announced the launch of the Source Morningstar US Energy Infrastructure MLP UCITS ETF on the London Stock Exchange. The ETF is linked to the Morningstar MLP Composite Index and is the first in Europe to offer dedicated exposure to US energy infrastructure Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs), which are booming as a result of the development of unconventional energy sources such as shale gas, tight oil and tar sands.

Recent figures released by the Investment Management Association (IMA), the UK fund management industry’s trade body, showed that in the first three months of 2013 following the introduction of the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) net retail sales fell to the lowest level in five years. While many active fund management groups may feel reason to complain, the introduction of RDR has proved a boon for ETF and index fund providers such as Vanguard.

First Trust has made its ETF debut in Canada with the launch of three AlphaDEX ETFs on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The AlphaDEX methodology is a transparent, rules-based weighting methodology designed to exploit possible mispricings and potential drawbacks of market-capitalisation-weighted benchmarks. The methodology has proved hugely popular in the US, where ETFs linked to it have accumulated assets in excess of $4 billion.

S&P Dow Jones has expanded its Latin American product offering with the launch of the S&P MILA Financials and S&P MILA Resources indices. The indices are designed to measure the primary equity sectors represented on the MILA (or Mercado Integrado Latino Americano) market. The MILA is a regional equity trading platform integrating the main stock exchanges of Chile, Colombia and Peru.