Tag Archives: SPDR

Following Slashing ETF Prices, State Street To Shutdown Three ETFs

March 12, 2015 MarketsMuse Staff Reporter Leave a comment

MarketMuse update profiles the the second oldest financial institution in the United States, State Street’s plans to shut down three ETFs after what has been a very difficult year for them. The shutdowns are due to what they call “limited market demand”. With more of an update, an excerpt from InvestmentNews’ Trevor Hunnicutt’s story, “State Street to close three ETFs that attracted little investor interest” from 10 March , is below.

The announced closure of the ETFs, including one municipal-bond fund in partnership with Nuveen Investments Inc., comes five weeks after the ETF pioneer slashed prices on nearly a third of its funds and while the firm faces outflows in its flagship fund.

State Street, who manages the first-to-market “SPDR” ETFs, will shut its S&P Mortgage Finance ETF (KME), S&P Small Cap Emerging Asia Pacific ETF (GMFS) and SPDR Nuveen S&P VRDO Municipal Bond ETF (VRD), according to a statement Monday. The funds are each at least three years old, but none hold more than $6 million in assets.

State Street, whose money managing arm is also known as SSGA, has $441 billion in U.S. ETF assets, third behind BlackRock Inc.’s iShares and the Vanguard Group Inc. The firm is perhaps best known for its SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which is commonly recognized as the first ETF traded in the U.S. as well as the most widely traded. That fund has lost $26 billion to investor redemptions this year, according to Morningstar Inc. estimates. State Street, whose index-tracking fund is used widely by tactical traders and institutions along with advisers, has said those flows are cyclical.

Meanwhile, the firm also has tried to expand its lineup to more profitable mutual funds and partnerships on ETFs with Nuveen and DoubleLine Capital’s Jeffrey Gundlach to attract assets into other product lines.

For the entire article from InvestmentNews, click here.

ETF News

State Street Slashes SPDR ETF Fees; Issuers In A Race to Zero? Nah..

February 3, 2015 MarketsMuse Staff Reporter Leave a comment

MarketsMuse blog update courtesy of extract from news report by Reuters’ Ashley Lau

State Street Corp said on Tuesday it has slashed management fees on 41 of its SPDR exchange-traded funds, joining major ETF providers BlackRock Inc and Vanguard in their efforts to lower fees as price competition heats up.

The price cuts at State Street, which affect a range of international and domestic equity and bond funds, come at a time when cost has become an increasingly important factor for ETF providers. Vanguard, which recently surpassed State Street to become the No. 2 U.S. ETF provider, has been winning assets with its razor-thin fees.

With the new price reductions, State Street’s SPDR Barclays Aggregate Bond ETF, for example, now has an expense ratio of 0.1 percent, down from 0.21 percent. That brings the fund closer to the range of the Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF and the iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF, which both have an expense ratio of 0.08 percent.

State Street said the fee reductions are part of an ongoing review process “to identify improvements that are beneficial to investors.”

“Competitive pricing is a core benefit to the SPDR ETF value proposition,” said James Ross, global head of SPDR ETFs at State Street Global Advisors, the company’s asset management business.

ETF assets have been flowing into Vanguard, long a leader in low fees. It increased its U.S. market share to 21.3 percent at the end of 2014, more than doubling its market share since 2008.

BlackRock, the largest ETF provider, has also been expanding its “iShares Core” lineup of low-cost ETFs, a program it started in October 2012 to compete with cheaper funds offered by other providers. The company said on Monday it would extend a partial fee waiver of annual management fees on certain iShares funds in Canada. (Reporting by Ashley Lau; Editing by Dan Grebler)

ETF News

Bullion Bulls Back Buying SPDR Gold (GLD)?

February 21, 2012 MarketsMuse Staff Reporter Leave a comment

Despite cutting his GLD holdings at the end of 2011, Billionaire John Paulson is, according to a letter to investors obtained by Bloomberg LP, bullish on bullion, and adding to his 17 million+ share position in the yellow metal ETF.

Similar stellar hedge fund managers, who have been trading the trend and more recently cashed in on paper profits, have purportedly since used the recent lackluster period of early January through mid February, in which gold traded down 20% from all time highs to re-load.

One in-the-know hedge fund trader (who asked not to be identified) observed, “you can look at 13-F’s and make all the interpretations that you want, but those filings only report yesterday’s news, whether its Soros adding, or SAC cutting back, or Tudor liquidating all of its GLD during the last quarter; the fact is, everyone still has an axe in owning gold to a much greater extent than they would have 3-4 years ago.