STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED THIS WEEK
The Wuhan coronavirus
The Wuhan coronavirus is most likely to impact investor sentiment in the US, Robert Horrocks, San Francisco-based chief investment officer at Matthews Asia, said in a note. “The impact on sentiment? Here [in the US] will be the greatest. Because US newspapers always seem to overreact to any news out of China, good or bad,” he said. “So what to do? I can only say that my experience, when I lived through SARS first hand, tells me to eat well, stay active, and importantly, stay calm,” he added…
People moves
Lombard Odier Investment Managers has bolstered its sustainability research capabilities with four appointments. They are Kristina Chruch, senior investment strategist for sustainable investment; Thomas Hörne-Sparborth, senior sustainable analyst; and quantitative analysts Ruairidh Cumming and Laura García Vélez. They will report to Christopher Kaminker, who was appointed as head of sustainable research, strategy and stewardship in July…
Digital fund launch
Singapore-based digital asset manager Stack has launched a fund that invests in Bitcoin, according to a statement from the firm. The fund, the Bitcoin Index Fund or BTCX100, is structured as a traditional open-ended fund and is available to non-US accredited investors. The firm expects the fund’s AUM to reach $750m within this year and surpass $2bn in 2021 as it believes it will have high demand coming from institutional investors…
ETF flows
The global ETF industry grew 32% to $6.18trn in 2019, according to a Vanguard report, citing data from ETFGI. During the year, the industry had net inflows of $552.8bn. In Asia, ETFs listed in Taiwan gathered the most assets ($25.2bn), made up predominantly of bond products, followed by China ($10bn), Korea ($5.2bn) and India ($5.1bn). Hong Kong was the only market that had net outflows during the year, which amounted to $1.7bn, as investors reallocated their investments to other markets within the region due to the ongoing political protests that have dampened the economy, the report said…
Enforcement
Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission has suspended Shiu Yau Wah, an account executive at RHB Securities in Hong Kong, for five months. The SFC found that Shiu conducted trades involving HK$1.62bn ($210m) worth of shares for a client account on a discretionary basis for almost two years between 2014 and 2016 without obtaining the client’s written authorisation. He also failed to comply with the policies and procedures of RHB Securities in relation to discretionary accounts…
CFA exam
Forty-two percent of the 73,688 candidates who took the December 2019 Level I CFA example have passed, according to a statement from the CFA Institute. Of those who passed, 59% came from Asia-Pacific, 23% coming from the Americas and 18% from Europe, Middle East and Africa…
