European multilateral trading facility Turquoise has signed an agreement with investment advisory firm Koris International to launch an exclusive exchange-traded fund trading segment with the aim of building institutional liquidity in European ETFs. The agreement grants Turquoise, which is part of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), an exclusive license of the TrackInsight A-list to create a dedicated ETF trading segment. The move comes amid MiFID II regulation, which will see ETFs considered as securities and therefore be required to demonstrate best execution. (Robert Barnes, CEO of Turquoise, pictured).

PureFunds, a US-based provider of thematic exchange-traded funds, has unveiled the world’s first dedicated video game technology ETF. Listed on the NYSE Arca, the PureFunds Video Game Tech ETF (GAMR) offers pure-play exposure to this increasingly important tech and entertainment sector. The ETF is linked to the EE Fund Video Game Tech Index, which tracks 36 global companies across the video gaming industry. Companies appearing in the index include video game developers, publishers and distributors, platform providers, accessories and peripherals manufacturers, and large tech and media conglomerates whose business models actively support the video gaming and interactive simulation segments.

Copia Capital Management, the discretionary fund manager of Novia group, has launched a pair of smart beta portfolios aimed at the UK adviser market. Teaming up with US exchange traded fund provider First Trust and technical analysis strategists Dorsey, Wright & Associates, the two portfolios are the Copia First Trust Smart Beta portfolio and the Copia Dorsey Wright Smart Beta portfolio.

State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), the asset manager behind the SPDR exchange-traded funds line-up, has launched a new ETF that invests in companies that are leaders in advancing women through gender diversity. Aptly launched on International Women’s Day, the SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF (NYSE Arca: SHE) is offered to investors who want to access the potential benefits of gender diverse leadership, while maintaining core US large-cap exposure. The ETF is linked to the proprietary SSGA Gender Diversity Index, which currently comprises 144 stocks from the largest 1,000 listed companies in the US, based on the number of women at the CEO, board or senior leadership levels.

Index provider MSCI has announced that it is expanding its ESG Research to include 21,000 mutual funds and exchange traded funds. The index provider’s specialist research arm, which focuses on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) matters, has developed MSCI ESG Fund Metrics following demand from wealth managers who want greater insight into the ESG attributes of their portfolios. MSCI ESG Fund Metrics will measure the ESG characteristics of portfolio holdings and rank, or screen, funds based on a diverse set of factors including sustainable impact, values alignment and ESG risks, including carbon footprint.

Last month exchange-traded fund provider Lyxor announced that it was slashing the fees on a number of its core London-listed UK and US bond ETFs. The move was the latest statement of intent from the Paris-headquartered firm, which had one of its best years in 2015 and is fast emerging as a strong alternative and credible challenger to the industry’s giants. This year marks the provider’s 15th anniversary and it expects its success to continue. ETF Strategy’s Rebecca Hampson talks to Arnaud Llinas, the firm’s global head of ETFs and indexing, about what 2016 holds and why it is now pushing the fixed income range.

Investment research house Morningstar has published a report examining the “active share” data of European equity funds purporting to be actively managed. The data shows that 20% of such funds qualify as “closet indexers”, leaving investors with active-management-type fees despite the fund behaving like a passive index tracker. The report appears to be yet another example supporting the case for embracing low-cost index funds such as exchange-traded funds, which have been shown to consistently outperform their active counterparts on a net-of-fees basis.

Atlanta-headquartered Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), owner of the NYSE Arca, the US’s leading exchange-traded funds market, has put out a statement confirming that it is considering a bid for the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). The statement follows an announcement last week from LSEG that it was in talks over a merger with Deutsche Boerse. The teaming of the pair would bring together two of the world’s largest exchange groups, and create a major transatlantic player in the ETF market.

The London Stock Exchange Group has confirmed that it is in talks with Deutsche Boerse over a potential merger of equals of the two businesses. Should the merger go ahead, both companies will continue to operate under their current brand names, but it would see the LSE holding 45.6% of the merged group and Deutsche Boerse the remaining 54.4%. If the two exchanges were to merge it would see two of the biggest platforms for exchange-traded fund trading in Europe coming together. Germany, Italy and UK currently have the largest and most actively traded ETF markets in Europe. The LSEG already owns Borsa Italiana. The union would also bring together two major index groups, FTSE Russell and STOXX.

Smart beta exchange-traded funds are more expensive than their market-cap-weighted counterparts, according to a report from Morningstar. The research report – “Assessing the True Cost of Strategic-Beta ETFs” – compared fees, replication costs and trading costs for 100 European-domiciled smart beta ETFs and 77 market-cap-weighted ETFs linked to broad equity benchmarks. The research found that the average total expense ratio a smart beta ETF using the S&P 500 as its parent index was three times higher than that of an ordinary S&P 500 ETF (0.43% compared to 0.14%).