Exchange-traded products (ETPs) listed in the US gathered US$28bn in net inflows during April 2018, after suffering net outflows of $10.6bn in February and US$2.56bn in March, according to ETFGI. Year-to-date net inflows into US listed ETPs reached $93.2bn at the end of April which is significantly less than the $169.71bn recorded at this point last year.

At the end of April 2018, the US exchange-traded fund (ETF) industry had 1,879 ETFs, assets of $3.3tr, from 121 providers on three exchanges. Overall the assets invested in ETFs/ETPs listed in the US increased by $38.6bn during April 2018. The increase of 1.12%, from $3.4tr at the end of March 2018 to $3.4tr at the end of April, also represents the highest monthly growth in assets since January 2018, which saw a monthly increase of 6.38% from $3.4tr to $3.6tr.

In April 2018, ETFs/ETPs saw net inflows of $28bn. Fixed income ETFs/ETPs gathered the largest net inflows with $13.7bn, followed by equity ETFs/ETPs with $10.1bn. The majority of these flows can be attributed to the top 20 ETFs by net inflows, which collectively have gathered $68.8bn during 2018. The iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF (IEFA US) on its own accounted for net inflows of $16.3bn. 

New fixed income ETF provider to launch in Europe

A new ETF provider is set to launch a range of unique fixed income funds targeting European institutional investors including insurance companies, pension funds, asset managers, private banks, and wealth managers.

Tabula Investment Management will be led by Michael John Lytle as CEO, and Hasan Sabri as COO. The sales team will cover the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the Nordics.

Tabula is seeking to provide new and more precise tools for passive credit exposure, as well as expand its offering across the asset class, moving from investment grade and high yield credit into inflation, government debt, emerging markets, bank capital, money markets, ESG strategies and Solvency II-efficient funds.

Tabula believes the persistent innovation that ignited the equity ETF market has been lacking in the fixed income sector resulting in large incumbent funds continuing to gather assets, but investors are eager for new products. In 2017, there were record inflows of $140 billion into fixed income ETFs.

Nomura adds 'gender equality play' to Next range

Nomura Asset Management (NAM), the asset management division of the Nomura Group, has listed the Next Funds MSCI Japan Empowering Women Select Index Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). The new ETF is designed to track the performance of the MSCI Japan Empowering Women (WIN) Select Index.

The MSCI Japan Empowering Women (WIN) Select Index is a stock price index developed by MSCI and comprises leading Japanese companies that promote gender diversity. Companies that foster diversity and actively encourage women's participation in the workplace are better able to respond to changes in the environment and better positioned to achieve sustainable earnings growth over the long term. The index also selects companies based on such factors as sales and capital expenditure, which contribute to company growth. The listing is a part of Nomura's Next Funds range, and brings the total to 59 tracker funds listed on the TSE.

LGMI deploys new Solactive' gender in leadership' UK Index

Solactive has launched the Solactive L&G Gender in Leadership UK Index which will be used as the basis for the L&G Future World Gender in Leadership UK Index Fund, the first gender-oriented fund to exclusively focus on UK-listed companies.

The new indiex is the result of collaboration between Solactive and Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), which combines LGIM's proprietary scoring system - the L&G Gender Diversity Score - with Solactive's expertise in the development of thematic indices. This is the last addition to Solactive's range of gender-based indices and cover the UK equity market for the first time. Using the Solactive GBS United Kingdom All Cap Index as starting universe, the index strategy adopts a gender-based weighting scheme, assigning more weight to companies with a higher L&G Gender Diversity Score. This score integrates four dimensions of gender diversity. These include the percentage of women on the board, at the executive level, at the management level, and across the workforce. Companies are expected to reach a minimum of 30% representation of women on these four measures

WisdomTree lists CoCo ETF on LSE

WisdomTree has launched the WisdomTree AT1 CoCo Bond UCITS ETF (CCBO LN) on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The new CCBO tracks the performance of the Markit iBoxx Contingent Convertible Liquid Developed Europe AT1 Index which covers contingent convertible (CoCo) bonds issued by financial institutions from developed European countries.

CoCo bonds are a form of hybrid debt that are intended to convert into equity or have their principal written down to absorb the issuer's capital losses upon the occurrence of certain triggers, such as the issuer falling below a specified liquidity ratio. Coco bonds generally offer higher yields than investing in senior bank debt and may offer some risk mitigation in regards to rising interest rates.