Peter Sleep, senior investment manager, Seven Investment Management (7IM) takes a look at key developments over the decade that he’s spent with 7IM. He reviews falling fees, the arrival of new players, through to some potential challengers for the future.

Morningstar has released its latest Active/Passive Barometer, a semi-annual report that measures the performance of US active funds against passive peers, such as ETFs, in respective Morningstar categories. The key takeaway from the report is that the average dollar invested in passive funds typically outperforms the average dollar invested in active funds.

First Trust gathered the largest net inflows into actively managed ETFs/ETPs during July with $504 million net new assets created, representing over a quarter of the $1.9 billion net inflows gathered globally over this period. According to research from ETF industry consultant ETFGI, other firms attracting significant net inflows during the month included Lyxor with $271m and Source with $153m.

ETFs/ETPs listed in Japan have gathered $4.3 billion in net inflows during July, bringing total assets invested in Japan-listed ETFs/ETPs to a new record high of $225bn, according to ETF industry consultant ETFGI.

New issuer Spinnaker ETF Trust has rolled out its first two ETFs on NYSE Arca under the Fieldstone brand name. The Fieldstone Merlin Dynamic Large Cap Growth ETF (FMDG) and the Fieldstone/UVA Unconstrained Medium-Term Fixed Income ETF (FFIU) are both actively managed and give investors exposure to US large-caps and global fixed income respectively.

The world’s largest high-yield bond ETF has come in for some criticism from a bond mutual fund manager at London and Edinburgh-based investment manager Kames Capital. Stephen Baines, co-manager of the Kames Short Dated High Yield Global Bond Fund, says the performance of the iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (NYSE Arca: HYG), which has returned 70.8%, or 5.5% per annum, over in the ten years since its launch, “looks somewhat disappointing” when compared to the broad high-yield market.

By Nicolas Rabener, Founder, FactorResearch

BlackRock estimates that smart beta ETFs will reach $1 trillion in assets by 2020 and $2.4 trillion by 2025. Smart beta is based on factor investing research, which categorises stocks into groups with similar attributes. Although smart beta is based on factor investing and many investors take smart beta as proxies for factors, these are fundamentally different products. In this short research note we will compare the returns of smart beta ETFs and factors.

By Dr. Jan-Carl Plagge, Head of Research – STOXX

Recent political events such as the US and the French election were found to have had a major impact on stock markets. While the impact of such events may often be short-lived, Brexit will remain on the agenda as the country is negotiating its withdrawal from the European Union over the next two years. In this context, investors face a number of challenges when considering such political events in their portfolio management.

ETF Securities has reported a rise in flows into its short US dollar ETFs in its latest weekly flows analysis for the week starting 14 August 2017. Morgane Delledonne, fixed income strategist at ETF Securites, identified the unclear commitments of Trump’s administration around pro-growth policies as the driver behind the flows.

Indxx, an index provider headquartered in New York, has launched the Indxx Dominant Dividend Japan Index. The smart beta index gives exposure to 50 high dividend paying stocks domiciled in Japan. Indxx has indicated the index is suitable for use as the underlying for ETF creation.