LISTED PRODUCT NEWS
FIRST LISTING FOR RBS’S ETC PLATFORM
Standard Commodities, the Royal Bank of Scotland’s exchange-traded commodities (ETC) platform, launched its first product on the Frankfurt Xetra stock exchange this week. Its physical gold ETC gives investors exposure to the performance of the London gold market fix price and the ETC is denominated in euros. The ETC is structured as an exchange-traded bond and has an annual management fee of 0.29 per cent. Standard Commodities is the sixth issuer to join the ETC section of Deutsche Boerse, which now has 161 products.
GOLD ETFS SEE FURTHER INFLOWS
The physical gold ETF issued by ETF Securities continued to see further inflows last week. Inflows surged by $160m, the largest in eight months, although the gold price was correcting downwards. Analysts at ETF Securities said that this may indicate that long-term strategic investors may be taking advantage of recent gold price weakness to further build long positions. Another ETF doing well at the moment is the ETFX DAXglobal Shipping Fund, which posted further solid gains last week, taking the year-to-date rise to 20 per cent. Returns have been buoyed by an 88 per cent increase in the Baltic Dry Index over the past 12 months, as the manufacturing rebound and global re-stocking has stoked demand for bulk transport.
SOC GEN ISSUES NEW SYNTHETIC ZEROS
Societe Generale launched its second batch of synthetic zero products at the end of last week. Synthetic zeros are listed structured products which provide a conditional return with downside protection of up to 40 per cent. There are two possible redemption scenarios, which are calculated on the final exercise date of the product.
If the underlying equity does not close below a certain predefined level (protection barrier) on the final exercise date, the investor will receive a predefined amount per product. If the downside barrier is breached during the product’s life, then investors’ capital will be at risk. The eight new synthetic zeros give exposure to Anglo American, Barclays, BA, BHP Billiton, Man Group, Land Securities, RBS and Rio Tinto.