| ETFs enjoy burst of activity Assets invested in Active ETFs listed globally reached a record USD453 billion at the end of March, according to ETF data firm ETFGI, the second highest quarterly inflow into the sector on record.
Achieving investment returns in these current difficult markets, beset by economic bad news and geo-political risk, is fraught with challenges but asset managers are realising that they can no longer sit in vanilla equity or fixed income indices in the expectation that they will go up. Actively managed product seems to be offering a solution.
And that vanilla index exposure at low fees might make wealth managers in Europe look less than inspired but the ‘secret sauce’ type of active or thematic ETFs offer exactly the sorts of returns needed at the moment, but at lower cost than an actual active fund.
Enter our interviewee this week, Andrew Beer of Dynamic Beta, who is a
passionate supporter of hedge fund replication through futures. His US ETF DBMF is enjoying the current returns on managed futures funds, the hedge fund strategy that is a bit like a desert rose, blooming spectacularly but somewhat unpredictably.
The SG CTA index is up 20 per cent this quarter and Beer’s DBMF is up over 21 per cent. Wealth management is changing, Beer says. "Wealth managers have turned into financial advisers." And with bigger claims on their time managing their clients, wealth managers are looking for simpler portfolios, he says, and certainly current challenging market conditions are perfect for his type of product which has a low correlation with equity returns.
More active news comes from Chandler Publishing this week, which has recently added Institutional Asset Manager to its stable of titles, bringing the total up to three – ETF Express; Wealth Adviser and Institutional Asset Manager.
Bear with us as we go
through the process of moving the titles out of their current platform and through a redesign. Take a look on Institutional Asset Manager now and read Nick Evans’ piece on the UK’s bid to create a crypto asset hub and his summary of the surge of inflows into hedge funds in the first quarter, which reflects exactly that active story we are covering in ETF Express. Please click here to read the
piece.
We hope that the combination of the three titles will keep you fully informed on global asset management trends. No small ambition, and definitely one that requires a great deal of activity going forward.
More activity for ETF Express is set for the autumn, with the return of the ETF Express North America awards. The date for the award ceremony is set for 27th October at The Metropolitan Club in New York. Mark it in your diaries and keep your eyes peeled for more information on the US awards over the summer months.
Beverly Chandler, managing editor, ETF Express
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Companies in this issue
21Shares
BlackRock
Dimensional Fund Advisors
DWS
Dynamic Beta
ETC Group
First Manhattan
First Trust
FlexShares
HANetf
State Street Global Advisors
WisdomTree
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