With US equity markets trading sideways in a horizontal band in the last few months, international markets continue to become increasingly appealing to investors. From a macro perspective, many economies outside of North America and Europe do indeed look quite a lot more promising than the US, both in terms of their fiscal position, their growth prospects and other fundamentals.
Issuers
RiverPark Advisors first came into the spotlight as a sub-advisor on four actively-managed ETFs launched by Grail Advisors back Oct 2009. In Feb 2010, RiverPark chose to file with SEC to launch its own actively-managed ETF, on what we suggested may be the start of sub-advisors stepping up and going to market by themselves. On July 29th, RiverPark filed an amended 40-APP with the SEC which included some changes in the proposed “initial funds” that RiverPark is looking to launch.
On 28th July, Horizons AlphaPro began trading another new actively-managed ETF on the Toronto Stock Exchange called the AlphaPro Global Balanced ETF (HAA). This new fund will look to provide a consistent rate of return through current income and long-term capital growth, achieved by investing Canadian equities, income trusts and debt securities.
On July 22nd, ALPS Advisors filed a preliminary prospectus for an actively-managed ETF that will focus on investing globally in fixed-income securities. The fund will be called the RiverFront Strategic Income Fund. ALPS Advisors was one of the first companies to actively market ETFs to the financial adviser community when ETFs were first launched in the US in the 90s. ALPS currently manages $92 million in ETF assets as of June 2010.
Roger Nusbaum, who runs the popular blog Random Roger, wrote in a post today that one area in which an actively-managed ETF could add some value is the financial sector. Roger makes the point that the financial sector is exactly the type where some active management would be beneficial to investors because of the number of potentially bad bets out there amongst banks. I couldn’t agree more.
On July 21st, two more actively-managed ETFs began trading, one in the US and one in Canada. AdvisorShares’ long-awaited WCM/BNY Mellon Focused Growth ADR ETF (AADR) debuted on the NYSE and became the first Active ETF to focus on a portfolio of American Depository Receipts (ADRs). In Canada, Horizons AlphaPro launched its 8th actively-managed ETF on the Toronto Stock Exchange, called the Horizons AlphaPro Global Dividend ETF (HAZ).
On July 15th, Horizons AlphaPro, the only issuer providing actively-managed ETFs in Canada, launched the first Canadian actively-managed fixed income ETF, in the form of the Horizons AlphaPro Corporate Bond ETF (TSX: HAB). AlphaPro originally filed for this ETF and two other active products – a global dividend ETF and a balanced ETF – just about a month back.
Active ETFs | In Focus spoke in-person with Bill Thomas, who is the CEO of Grail Advisors. Grail currently has 7 actively-managed ETFs on the market and just recently announced a partnership with DoubleLine Capital, which is lead by the respected fixed-income manager – Jeffery Gundlach. Bill talks to us about their new partnership, Active ETF disclosure, prospects for mutual fund conversions.
