New year, new themes and new geographical expansion – and whisper it, the return of crypto

This week brings you news of South Africa’s growing ETF industry with the launch of a passive and active managed ETF platform from South African fund manager, Prescient. The firm offer ETFs and is also offering a white label service for home grown ETF issuers. The firm writes that this launch is not only a big win for investors but also the burgeoning local actively managed ETF market. Collective investment schemes and specifically actively managed ETFs are now set to make their mark in South Africa, the firm says.

It's that time of year for predictions for next year and BlackRock has brought us its 2024 Thematic Outlook, entitled Three Key Themes to Get Investors Off the Sidelines. The themes, according to Jay Jacobs, US Head of Thematics and Active Equity ETFs, are: artificial intelligence; medical innovation and the rewiring of globalisation.

We are still celebrating our winners from the US ETF Express ETF awards.
To read the full list of winners and our interviews with some of them please click here. 

Among those winners is CoinDesk, whose CoinDesk Indices won Best Cryptocurrency Index Provider, and who had news this week of their purchase by digital asset exchange, Bullish.

All things crypto is back. The rise in the price of bitcoin is something of a tide coming in for the whole sector and enjoying that from the beach are ETC Group, whose assets have gone over USD1 billion again, for the first time since April 2022.

CoinShares reported the eighth week of inflows into digital asset investment products this week and their analyst, James Butterfill, has written a detailed note on the effect the long-awaited approval of a spot bitcoin ETP in the US would have on the price of bitcoin. Link here.

That was also discussed with Bradley Duke of the ETC Group in our interview, back in October. 

Will the SEC grant permission for a spot bitcoin ETP in the US before Christmas? We keep on holding our breath in anticipation but if it coincides with the rise in the price of bitcoin, it’s going to be a heady market to watch.

Beverly Chandler, Managing Editor

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