iShares, the world’s largest provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and best known for its equity and fixed income products, has expanded its offering in the commodities space with the launch of the iShares Dow Jones-UBS Roll Select Commodity Index Trust (CMDT) on the NYSE Arca. The product is designed to provide exposure to a broad basket of commodity futures while reducing the negative effects of ‘contango’ and accentuating the benefits of ‘backwardation’.

iShares’ assets held on UK wrap platforms have surpassed the £1 billion mark as an ever-greater number of financial advisers make use of ETFs. Hugo Thorman, Managing Director of Ascentric, one of the platforms on which iShares ETFs are available, said: “These results show the continued importance of ETFs in providing advisers and discretionary fund managers with low cost access to a range of markets. iShares ETFs on the Ascentric platform were up 72% compared to the same period in 2012, and with assets up 45% since the start of the year, we expect to see this growth trend continue.”

Positive economic news, particularly from China, helped to fuel a mini-revival in industrial commodity prices last week despite rising expectations that the US Federal Reserve will begin tapering its stimulus programme. Exchange-traded products (ETPs) linked to industrial metals were a significant beneficiary of this revival, with aluminium-based products seeing additional demand due to a combination of actual and anticipated production cuts.

Vanguard has listed five new locally domiciled exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). The new funds, which are based on equity indices, bring the total number of Vanguard ETFs on the TSX to 16. Earlier this year, the firm saw its TSX-listed ETF range surpass $1 billion in assets under management.

By David Stevenson – This week I’m going to carry on banging my contrarian drum with a call to action focused on Chinese equities. Although I wouldn’t quite come out and say that now is the right time to invest in a China ETF, I do think that astute investors should start to think long and hard about intelligent ways to buy into the right bits of the Chinese story. And the good news is that there’s a growing number of smart ETFs offering exactly the right kind of exposures.

Charles Schwab is set to roll out six new fundamentally weighted exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The funds, which will launch in the US next week, will be linked to the smart beta Russell Fundamental Index Series. Marie Chandoha, president of Charles Schwab Investment Management, said: “These ETFs add a new flavour to our ‘pure vanilla’ ETF market-cap line-up and further demonstrate our commitment to offering core products that help investors build their portfolios and potentially achieve better outcomes.”

Investors shed their optimism on emerging markets in the second quarter, according to the latest Citywire db X-trackers Emerging Market Sentiment Indicator, sponsored by exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management. Kai Bald, Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management’s Head of Public Distribution, Passive Investments, said: “The latest sentiment report is in line with the ETF flows we saw in the second quarter.”

Just when investors were beginning to think that the flurry of MLP exchange-traded product launches had slowed, Global X Funds, a New York-based provider of ETFs, rolls out a new fund on the NYSE Arca: the Global X MLP & Energy Infrastructure ETF (MLPX). The fund tracks the Solactive MLP & Energy Infrastructure Index, an index reflecting the performance of both MLPs and energy infrastructure corporations.

First Asset, an independent Canadian investment management company, has seen the highest percentage asset growth among Canadian exchange-traded fund (ETF) providers during the months of June and July, with C$47.5 million in ETF asset inflows. The firm has found success in both the fixed income and equity ETF categories through collaboration with DEX Universe Bond Indices and Morningstar Indices.

By Deborah Fuhr, managing partner and co-founder of ETFGI – Many ETF/ETP managers in Europe are adjusting their product offerings hoping to create and develop bestselling ETFs and ETPs. If ETFs fail to gain a critical level of assets after a number of years the provider is likely to consider adjusting their product set. Providers are also adjusting where they will list and cross-list their ETFs/ETPs. Many providers are reducing the number of cross-listings to save costs and concentrate on exchange liquidity.