Gold had been seen as a pretty safe bet for investors during the recent turmoil in the global economy. Yet after a decade-long rally, gold experienced its biggest fall in value for 30 years in April and again last week tumbling to its lowest level in nearly three years. Ole Hansen, Head of Commodity Strategy at Saxo Capital Markets, sees gold “dropping like a stone” en route to $1150 and says that specialist short exchange-traded products (ETPs) are one way investors can benefit from a falling gold price.

Boost, a London-based provider of short and leveraged exchange-traded products (ETPs), has listed five new products on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) offering exposure to the FTSE 250 and FTSE 100 indices. The products, based on specialist short and leveraged versions of their parent FTSE indices, offer -1x and 2x exposure to the mid-cap FTSE 250 and 2x, -2x and -1x exposure to the large-cap FTSE 100.

Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management is to close 36 exchange-traded products (ETPs) following a review of its db X line-up. The products selected for closure, a mix of relatively niche exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and exchange-traded commodities (ETCs) listed across multiple European exchanges, have generated little investor appetite. Manooj Mistry, head of ETPs, EMEA, at Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management, said: “At this stage in the development of the European ETF market we aim to focus on gathering assets around our major benchmark index products”.

Axioma, specialists in portfolio construction and risk management, and China Securities Index (CSI), an index provider, have launched a suite of six factor indices on China’s A-share market. The indices, which are suitable both as underlyings for index funds such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or as performance benchmarks, are based on the popular CSI 300 index and consist of a basket of securities designed to deliver exposure to value, growth, volatility and predicted beta factors.

Commodity exchange-traded products (ETPs) saw record outflows in the second quarter (Q2) of 2013, pushing assets down to their lowest level since Q2 2010, according to data from ETF Securities, a London-based provider of exchange-traded funds. Rising real interest rates in the US on expectations of an early end to Federal Reserve bond buying and a strengthening of the US dollar were behind the downturn in sentiment. Gold ETPs bore the brunt of this with $18.5bn of net outflows. The one bright spot was platinum, which saw $712m of net ETP inflows over the quarter.

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and exchange-traded products (ETPs) have registered their first net outflows in over two years, with almost $4 billion being pulled out of the products globally in June 2013, according to preliminary figures from ETFGI, a London-based consultancy. Year to date, however, assets in ETFs and ETPs have increased by 4.9% and remain close to the all-time high reached at the end of May 2013. Net inflows for the first half of the year were $103.9 billion.

Navesis-ETF, an electronic exchange-traded funds (ETFs) trading platform, has teamed up with Calastone, a specialist provider of order-routing, settlement and reconciliation services to the fund management industry, to improve the way fund platforms, supermarkets and wraps – key intermediary distribution channels – transact in ETFs. The collaboration comes at a time when ETFs are growing in popularity with IFAs and wealth managers across Europe, a large proportion of whom use fund platforms, supermarkets and wraps.

Vanguard has announced that its giant emerging markets ETF, which goes by the ticker ‘VWO’, has completed its transition to the FTSE Emerging Index. The completion of this transition concludes a series of index changes announced by Vanguard in October 2012, which has seen 22 of its stock and balanced index funds switch from MSCI indices to indices provided by FTSE and CRSP.

When it comes to international equity exchange-traded funds (ETFs), MSCI appears to be the preferred index provider among institutional investors, according to a recent study by Greenwich Associates. The study, which looked at institutional investors’ deepening relationship with ETFs, found that 88% of US institutional ETF users and 100% of investment consultants name MSCI as their benchmark of choice.

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have been around for 20 years. Since the launch of the first ETF in the US in 1993, they have grown into a $2 trillion-plus market. According to Chris Stevenson of Barclays Stockbrokers, the UK’s largest online broker, “few could have imagined how big the concept would become – both as an individual investing opportunity and an investment idea.” Stevenson says the success is down to three main factors – simplicity and transparency, cost efficiency and variety.