Latest: US ETF provider enters structured outcome space

The new Pacer Structured Outcome Strategies (SOS) fund family includes the Pacer Swan SOS ETF Series which seeks to match returns of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust up to a predetermined cap on the upside, while also offering investors a buffer against market downturns to a predetermined point.

The Structured Outcome Strategies fund family was launched on 29 December and is available for trading on the Cboe BZX Exchange.

The firm’s new hedged equity suite deepens its roster of risk-managed ETF offerings and consists of three ETFs that each offer their own set of buffer rules including the Pacer Swan SOS Conservative ETF; Pacer Swan SOS Moderate ETF; Pacer Swan SOS Flex ETF and Pacer Swan SOS Fund of Funds ETF.

‘We are actively trying to anticipate the needs of each of our investors and provide them with a strategic investment opportunity that’s suited to evolving market conditions,’ said Sean O’Hara (pictured), president of Pacer ETFs Distributors, and director at Pacer Financial.

Pacer has partnered with Swan Global Management, a specialist asset management firm, which will act as the sub-advisor for the fund family. Pacer Financial entered into a partnership with Barclays Bank in September 2019 to focus on marketing and education for the bank’s iPath Gold exchange-traded notes (ETNs).

New ‘social justice’ tracker launched in US

Adasina Social Capital, a Black and women-owned investment and financial activism firm seeking to bridge financial markets and social justice movements, has launched the Adasina Social Justice All Cap Global ETF.

The ETF tracks the Adasina Social Justice Index, which is screened using both the Social Justice Investment Criteria and traditional ESG metrics. The index includes a global universe of public companies whose business practices are aligned with the firm’s social justice investment criteria, and excludes companies whose practices impede the advancement of equitable systems. Index constituents include large-, mid-, and small-capitalisation companies.

The investment criteria is a data-driven set of investment standards determined by working closely with social justice movements to identify the issues most directly affecting their communities – with a particular focus on racial, gender, economic and climate justice.

‘By sourcing our data straight from impacted communities, through close relationships with social justice leaders, we have the unprecedented ability to direct investor capital to the issues most critical to long-term change – this approach gives us a data advantage relative to other solutions,’ said Rachel Robasciotti (above-right), co-founder and CEO of Adasina.

Cboe Global Markets to develop crypto indices

Cboe Global Markets has signed an exclusive licensing agreement with CoinRoutes to disseminate its market data and create potential derived data and analytics products using its RealPrice data.

CoinRoutes, a trading software firm based in New York, provides a suite of algorithmic trading tools for digital assets, FX and derivatives. Under the agreement, Cboe has exclusive rights to use CoinRoutes RealPrice data to create digital asset indices and to offer custom index creation and calculations to Cboe clients.

By distributing the digital asset index data across Cboe's real-time index data feeds, Cboe expects to initially reach a customer base of at least thousands, with potential to grow well beyond this number given the global userbase.

‘Strategic alliances with software technology firms like CoinRoutes have the potential to spark the next generation of index solutions – helping our clients make better-informed trading decisions,’ said Bruce Traan, head of global indices at Cboe Global Markets.

Cboe Information Solutions also plans to use real-time data dissemination of RealPrice data in portfolio construction tools, pre-trade and cost estimation tools, risk measurement analytics for lenders and historical data for back-testing.

BMO deploys leverage/inverse gold miners ETN

Bank of Montreal has launched two leveraged and inverse ETNs using the S-Network MicroSectors Gold Miners Index as the underlying strategy.

The new gold miners equity-focused ETNs have a 300% and -300% daily resetting leverage and track the market cap-weighted index designed to track the performance of the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX) and the VanEck Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ) which was launched by S-Network, an Alerian company, in December 2020.

The index represents Alerian/S-Network’s first joint collaboration with REX Shares and it is aimed at providing access to targeted investable market segments for sophisticated investors and develop specialised solutions to address sophisticated needs in the marketplace, according to CEO Dave LaValle (right).

Indxx rolls out junior robotics & AI index series

Indxx has launched the Indxx Junior Robotics & AI Index Series which tracks the performance of companies that provide exposure to the robotics, industrial automation and artificial intelligence sectors.

The Index Series is comprised of the Indxx Global Junior Robotics & AI Index and the Indxx US Junior Robotics & AI Index. To be eligible for inclusion securities must be listed in a developed market under Indxx’s ‘Country Classification’, have a minimum total market capitalisation of US$300m, and a six-month average daily turnover greater than or equal to US$2m.

In case of a significant IPO, a security must have an average daily turnover greater than or equal to US$2m since the IPO launch date, and be traded on 90% of the eligible trading days in the last six months. The index applies a weight cap of eight percent and a floor of 0.3% to each single security.

The top five index constituents include Nvidia Corp. (7.86%), Fanuc Corp. (7.77%), Intuitive Surgical Inc. (7.75%), Keyence Corp Ord (7.66%) and Abb Ltd-reg (7.46%).

The Indxx Junior Robotics & AI Index Series provide exposure to smaller, high growth and innovative companies that have the potential to grow exponentially, according to Rahul Sen Sharma, managing partner at Indxx.