Softening momentum in global manufacturing data sparked outflows from copper, aluminium and industrial metal basket ETPs.
Outflows from gold ETPs rose for the fifth consecutive week amidst a strong US dollar.
Crude oil ETPs faced another week of outflows as higher inventory data caused oil prices to decline.
Inflows into diversified commodity basket ETPs, totalling US$92.5mn surged to their highest level since May 2016. Rising volatility across global financial markets in conjunction with supportive fundamentals for most commodities favours the case for diversifying a portfolio.
Softening momentum in global manufacturing data sparked outflows from copper, aluminium and broad industrial metal basket ETPs worth US$28.9mn, US$11.1mn and US$14.8mn respectively. The decline in Chinese Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for the manufacturing sector to its lowest level since July 2016 appears to have stoked concerns of future demand for industrial metals, coupled with weaker manufacturing PMI data across US, Europe and UK. Added to that, copper production in Chile, home to the world’s largest copper mining producer, rose 6.3% over the prior year in January providing evidence of rising copper supply. The imposition of trade tariffs by President Trump on steel and aluminium imports generated volatility across industrial metals prompting outflows from industrial metal basket and aluminium ETPs for the first time in three weeks. Nickel ETPs bucked the trend, by recording inflows of US$9.4mn owing to expectations of demand from battery technology.
Outflows from gold ETPs amounting to US$93.8mn rose for the fifth week in a row amidst a strong US dollar. In the first nine weeks of 2018, the overall trend of gold ETP flows has largely been negative. Last week marked the fifth consecutive week of gold ETP outflows as the US dollar strengthened in the aftermath of Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell’s optimistic view of the US economy and upward trajectory of interest rates. Meanwhile, precious metal basket ETPs garnered inflows worth US$11.1mn for the fifth consecutive week.
Crude oil ETPs faced another week of outflows worth US$15.8mn. Since the start of 2018, there has only been one week of inflows into crude oil ETPs highlighting the ensuing pessimism amongst ETP investors, who have been opportunistically selling into the price rally that began around June 2017. Last week, crude oil prices came under significant pressure owing to an unexpected sharp increase in US crude oil stocks in conjunction with the firmer US dollar. Added to that, weaker manufacturing data in China, known to be the world’s largest crude oil importer, amplified risk aversion amongst investors. The drop in OPEC production to a 10-month low in February failed to counteract the bearish sentiment since it is largely attributable to temporary production shortfalls in Venezuela.
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The outcome of the US election last month continues to reverberate through the crypto markets. The Nasdaq Crypto IndexTM (NCITM) has risen over 57% since November 5, fueled by widespread optimism over the direction of digital asset policy in the US.
As I wrote in a previous note, crypto assets tend to follow a four-year cycle that includes a bull phase of roughly 12 months, followed by a year-long bear market, and then a two-year recovery period. In the previous two bull markets, altcoins (i.e., everything outside of BTC) have significantly outperformed the largest crypto asset.
I believe we’ve entered a bull market, reinforced by the macro environment and US election outcomes. But there’s another data point signaling a bull market—the outperformance of the NCITM relative to BTC.¹ In the last three months, the NCITM has had a higher return than BTC (78.0% vs. 76.5%) and since the election, the NCITM has outperformed BTC by 6.8%.
Crypto Asset Performance
So, which specific aspects of crypto are poised for outperformance this time around?
One key area to watch is smart contract projects, platforms that will allow users to transact not only information but value and property as well. We believe these platforms and applications will outperform BTC in the next 12-18 months as they compete for users and lay the groundwork for decentralized applications. On the back of the infrastructure developments we have seen in this area in the last few years, new applications are emerging across AI, gaming, and many other areas as tokenization continues to expand.
We also believe that new regulatory progress in 2025 will be more beneficial to these applications than to Bitcoin specifically, because Bitcoin already has regulatory clarity and a well-developed capital markets structure, with the growth of ETFs, options, and futures. In the US and Europe, this legislative and regulatory clarity that will benefit altcoins may include:
• Market structure legislation: Proposals like FIT21 will remove ambiguities regarding the commodity vs. security status of crypto assets, as well as create paths to registration that could boost adoption in the US.
• Stablecoin legislation / MiCA implementation: Both will drive the adoption of stablecoins in the US and Europe, expanding the stablecoin phenomenon beyond just emerging markets.
• Repeal of SAB121: When this obstacle is removed and US banks can hold crypto for their clients, banks and brokerages will increase their crypto trading and custody offerings, which will benefit altcoins the most.
• New ETF launches: With the new SEC chair, there are renewed hopes for additional ETF approvals, including indices and single assets like Solana and XRP. There’s still much uncertainty here, but new assets having ETFs as on-ramps is highly positive.
In addition to Bitcoin developing as an emerging digital store of wealth and smart contract platforms becoming a new way to exchange information, value, and property, there are three other altcoin use cases we believe will benefit in the coming year:
DeFi: Projects aimed at creating an internet-based financial system, running on smart contract platforms, will create a new global capital markets infrastructure for payments, with stablecoins and tokenized money market funds being the first important use cases.
Web3: A new iteration of the internet that will let us own our data and make the internet decentralized and more usable for things like AI agents and other innovations.
Digital Culture: An emerging digital-native generation will have more demand to own digital assets and collectibles, with gaming being a natural first application.
If we compare crypto to the internet, this industry is like the internet in the 1990s and Bitcoin could be compared to email—the only application most people hear about. But fast forward 20 years and while email is still very useful, it has not been the internet’s application that created the most societal value. We believe this could be true for how Bitcoin is currently viewed relative to crypto.
Benefits of diversification
Our team at Hashdex are firm believers that getting broad exposure to this market is necessary to capture the growth we believe we will experience in these other areas. Indices like the Nasdaq Crypto IndexTM (NCITM) can provide broader market exposure and, as crypto matures as an asset class, better risk-adjusted returns. Additionally, indices provide more significant optionality as investors don’t need to rely on an active manager to do this for them. The complexity and fast-evolving nature of crypto make it hard to pick individual winners and an index simplifies investing by offering a balanced, data-driven selection of assets that can align with modern portfolio theory principles.
This is why index ETFs have been at the core of our mission. Accessing crypto through these familiar structures allows investors to benefit from the growth of this asset class with minimal friction. For most investors, we most often recommend a very small allocation to crypto, from 1% to 5%. We strongly believe that a benchmark like the NCITM is an excellent way to “buy the market” and benefit from a strategic allocation into this promising asset class.
[1] The Nasdaq Crypto Index includes Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Ripple, Cardano, Chainlink, Avalanche, Litecoin, Polygon, and Uniswap as of 9/30/24
Sedan i måndags har två ETFer från Xtrackers kunnat handlas på Xetra. Xtrackers MSCI Taiwan UCITS ETF (XTMT) följer utvecklingen av MSCI Taiwan 20/35 Custom Index. Investerare får därmed direkt tillgång till den taiwanesiska aktiemarknaden. Vikten för det största företaget är begränsad till 35 procent och de övriga företagens till 20 procent vardera. Det största företaget är för närvarande Taiwan Semiconductor. Totalt omfattar referensindexet 88 företag, som täcker cirka 85 procent av Taiwans börsvärde.
Xtrackers MSCI World ESG UCITS ETF (XZWD) följer utvecklingen av MSCI World Low Carbon SRI Selection Index. Indexet inkluderar stora och medelstora företag från utvecklade länder över hela världen. De måste ha bättre ESG-egenskaper och lägre koldioxidutsläpp jämfört med sina kamrater.
Båda fonderna är tillgängliga för investerare i den utdelande andelsklassen.
Produktutbudet i Deutsche Börses XTF-segment omfattar för närvarande totalt 2 318 ETFer. Med detta urval och en genomsnittlig månatlig handelsvolym på cirka 16 miljarder euro är Xetra den ledande handelsplatsen för ETFer i Europa.
Amundi S&P SmallCap 600 ESG UCITSETFDist (MWON ETF) med ISIN IE000XLJ2JQ9, försöker spåra S&P SmallCap 600 ESG+-index. S&P SmallCap 600 ESG+-index spårar amerikanska småbolagsaktier. Aktierna som ingår filtreras enligt ESG-kriterier (miljö, social och bolagsstyrning).
Den börshandlade fondens TER (total cost ratio) uppgår till 0,35 % p.a. Amundi S&P SmallCap 600 ESG UCITSETFDist är den enda ETF som följer S&P SmallCap 600 ESG+ index. ETFen replikerar det underliggande indexets prestanda genom fullständig replikering (köper alla indexbeståndsdelar). Utdelningarna i ETFen delas ut till investerarna (Minst årligen).
Amundi S&P SmallCap 600 ESG UCITSETFDisthar tillgångar på 117 miljoner euro under förvaltning. Denna ETF lanserades den 20 januari 2023 och har sin hemvist i Irland.
Investeringsmål
AMUNDI S&P SMALL CAP 600 ESG UCITSETFDISTförsöker replikera, så nära som möjligt, resultatet för S&P SmallCap 600 ESG+ Index oavsett om trenden stiger eller faller. Denna ETF erbjuder exponering mot värdepapper som uppfyller ESG-kriterier samtidigt som den bibehåller liknande branschgruppsvikter som S&P SmallCap 600 Index.
Det betyder att det går att handla andelar i denna ETF genom de flesta svenska banker och Internetmäklare, till exempel DEGIRO, Nordnet, Aktieinvest och Avanza.