Products October 13, 2011

Australian Fixed Income Index Series Launched

S&P Indices and the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) have launched a package of benchmarking tools for fixed interest investments in Australia.
Reported by

The S&P/ASX Australian Fixed Income Series will complement Australia’s official S&P/ASX Equity Index Series, providing a complete offering across the key asset classes of cash, fixed income, and equities. 

The S&P/ASX Australian Fixed Income Index Series is a broad benchmark suite of indices designed to measure the performance of the Australian short-term money market and the Australian bond market which meet the index eligibility criteria.  

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The Series comprises: 

  • The S&P/ASX Australian Fixed Interest Index – the flagship bond index, measuring the performance of the Australian bond market and the sub-sector indices; 
  • The S&P/ASX Government Bond Index
  • The S&P/ASX Commonwealth Government Bond Index
  • The S&P/ASX State Government Bond Index
  • The S&P/ASX Corporate Bond Index
  • The S&P/ASX Supranational and Sovereign Bond Index
  • The S&P/ASX Bank Bill Index – measuring the performance of the Australian short-term money market
“Australian investors need a comprehensive set of equity and fixed income measurement tools to benchmark the performance of investments. Like the S&P/ASX Equity Index Series, the S&P/ASX Fixed Income Index Series is transparent, liquid, investible and independent,” said Guy Maguire, Head of S&P Indices in Australia.
The Markets October 13, 2011

ETFs Reverse Course in September

Investors poured an additional $6 billion into U.S. exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in September, after withdrawing approximately half a billion in August.
Reported by

The data from Strategic Insight, an Asset International company, show that taxable bond ETFs led the way in flows in September with $4 billion in net inflows, followed by equity ETFs with roughly $1.7 billion in net inflows. In the third quarter of 2011, total net inflows to ETFs were nearly $19 billion, down from $27 billion in net inflows in Q2 2011.   

Because of equity market performance, ETFs (including ETNs) ended September with roughly $970 billion in total assets, the first time that ETF assets ended a month below the $1 trillion mark since November 2010.   

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“Despite fluctuations in the markets, net flows to ETFs have been fairly consistent. We continue to believe that ETFs in the U.S. will reach $2 trillion in assets before 2016,” said Loren Fox, a Senior Research Analyst at Strategic Insight, in a press release.  

More information is available at http://www.sionline.com.

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