New products introduced over the last week include a new small-cap dividend growth fund from WisdomTree and a new odd-lot fixed income pricing service from BondDesk and S&P Capital IQ. In addition, Direxion announced reverse and forward share splits for nine of its ETFs, and Allianz Global Investors said it will develop a global emerging market debt capability.
Here are the latest developments of interest to advisors:
1) WisdomTree Launches U.S. SmallCap Dividend Growth Fund
WisdomTree announced Thursday the launch of the WisdomTree U.S. SmallCap Dividend Growth Fund (DGRS), designed to provide exposure to small-cap dividend-paying stocks with growth characteristics; it has an expense ratio of 0.38%.
DGRS seeks to offer a diversified basket of small-cap dividend-paying securities with growth characteristics; differentiated exposure from traditional dividend funds; greater exposure to cyclical sectors leveraged to an improving U.S. economy, versus more defensive sectors; having at annual index rebalance a single stock cap of 2% and a sector cap of 25%.
2) BondDesk, S&P Capital IQ to Develop Odd-Lot Fixed Income Pricing Service
BondDesk Group LLC and S&P Capital IQ announced Thursday a new pricing service forU.S.corporate and municipal bonds, Odd-Lot Valuations. The evaluated prices in this new service will be derived using S&P Capital IQ's proprietary methodologies and factor in market data from the BondDesk ATS.
Odd-Lot Valuations will include bid- and ask-side odd-lot (<$1 million) evaluated prices, a unique market range around these prices and a flexible suite of tools to deliver these outputs to fixed-income marketplace participants including retail brokers, market makers, buy-side institutions, interdealer brokers, data providers and alternative trading systems (ATSs). The service will bring a degree of confidence to the execution of odd-lot fixed income trades, provide compliance departments with a consistent way to help assess trade execution quality, and provide investors with valuations that are more indicative of odd lot transactions.
3) Direxion Announces Reverse and Forward Share Splits of Nine ETFs