February 11, 2021
Socially responsible investments that track environmental, social, and governance principles have gathered momentum in 2020, and four trends may continue to support this trade.
“While the pandemic was the catalyst for increased flows into ESG investments in 2020, we expect global action on environmental and social challenges to spark flows in 2021,” State Street Global Advisors’ Brie Williams, Head of Practice Management, and Rebecca Chesworth, Equity ETF Strategist, said in a recent research note.
“As the foundation for ESG investing expands, momentum will continue to build across the globe. We look forward to seeing how investors will respond to businesses and governments that hold themselves accountable to multiple sets of stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, affected communities, and local and global environments.”
A Canadian company has beaten the U.S. to the punch by getting regulatory approval to launch North America’s first exchange traded fund designed to track the price of bitcoin.
The Purpose Bitcoin ETF can be held within registered accounts like an RRSP, TFSA, or RESP.
Illumina Earnings, Forward Guidance Strengthen Biotech ETFs February 12, 2021
Biotechnology sector-related exchange traded funds strengthened after Illumina (NasdaqGS: ILMN) announced better-than-expected quarterly earnings and an optimistic 2021 outlook.
On Friday, the
Meanwhile, Illumina shares jumped 13.4%. ILMN makes up 5.9% of BBH and 4.7% of IBB.
Illumina revealed a record fourth quarter revenue of $953 million, an increase of 20% compared to the third quarter of 2020 and $0.5 million higher than the prior year period, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Illumina delivered a strong finish to 2020 with record fourth quarter revenue exceeding our expectations,” Francis deSouza, Chief Executive Officer, said. “We also had record orders in the quarter, including record sequencing instrument orders and the second highest quarter for NovaSeq instrument orders. Our business delivered strong sequential growth in the second half of 2020 and we expect continued recovery from
Is Your Low Volatility Strategy Good Enough? Test It Overseas February 12, 2021
A low volatility strategy can help investors avoid market queasiness. According to a recent Forbes article, one great way to test such a strategy is to see how it fares overseas.
“One robust way to test out factors is to see if they hold up across geographies,” the Forbes article said. “Researchers have found that low volatility does appear to work in China for the A Shares Market, though in a slightly different manner to the U.S. market. This is also relatively recent research looking at the 2000-2018 period, so may be less prone to the issue that historical performance can decline once the factor is well understood. This research is titled ‘The Volatility Effect in China’ and produced by researchers at Robeco Investments.”