By Linda Zhang (pictured), CEO, Purview Investments – "While writing this piece in Manhattan, I can’t imagine what New York City would be like if it were shut down for 24 hours.” This was how I started a publication about the impact of the Covid-19 shutdown in China on the world economy and capital markets in late February. A couple of weeks later, the city entered a state of shelter in place. Five months later, my beloved city and many parts of the world are still in various states of shutdown.

It has been well over 100 days since that fateful day in late March when the Fed stepped in and said they would start buying Corporate Bonds as part of a much wider plan to help avoid a broader market collapse as outflows from Fixed Income funds ran riot. 

Jason Xavier, Head of EMEA ETF Capital Markets, and Rafaelle Lennox, Senior ETF Product Specialist at Franklin Templeton, examine ETF investing within the context of the Covid-19 crisis, and why they believe investors will continue to embrace these vehicles.

One of the surprising aspects of 2020 has been the speed at which the concept of ‘active management’ in the pursuit of alpha has been rehabilitated, and in the long run I suspect this will benefit the ETF industry. 

After the mother of all market selloffs in March and the mother of all market rebounds in April, it is long overdue to survey the debris that some investors might mistake for a well-constructed portfolio. As an income investor one should really ‘beware the Ides of March’ and in this article I will review four sources of income and the risks that come with that territory.

We’ve long held the view that in the next market downturn, somewhere down the line ETFs would be vilified. And that happened, initially, with headlines noting: wild swings in premiums/discounts; illusion of liquidity; exacerbating volatility. But after the initial hysteria and alarmist headlines, as calmer heads prevailed and market participants shared their truths, the tune changed, and ETFs emerged as a hero in troublesome times.   

By Allan Lane (pictured), Algo-Chain – At Algo-Chain when re-balancing our Model Portfolios we have always been big advocates of using macro-economic data to help guide the asset allocation decision process, and central to that is the data provided by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD.

By Allan Lane (pictured), Algo-Chain – We live in strange times; many countries have seen business come to a complete and utter standstill and yet in many instances the equity markets continue with gay abandon. In this new paradigm, perhaps best described as a once in a lifetime fish tank, some equity markets are performing much better than others. 

Morningstar’s Director of Global ETF Research, Ben Johnson, agree with the spirit of an industry coalition proposal to improve the labelling of ETPs, but not the specifics…

What is it about collecting that forces someone to want everything on a list once they have engaged with their first item of that kind? One needs to only think of either record collectors or train spotters to know this habit can get out of control. Oddly enough this line of thinking also applies to investing - once you have traded one US Equity Sector ETF, then one’s inner voice compels you to keep looking at all of them.