New products and changes introduced over the last week include a gender diversity ETF from State Street Global Advisors, a core bond fund from Vanguard and a custom index from W.E. Donoghue & Co.
In addition, Bloomberg launched a liquidity risk tool; Envestnet|Tamarac integrated with Pershing's NetX360 platform; and Gemini Hedge partnered with Hedge Connection.
Here are the latest developments of interest to advisors:
1) SSGA Launches Gender Diversity ETF
State Street Global Advisors launched the SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity ETF (SHE), which tracks the performance of the SSGA Gender Diversity Index. The index is comprised of listed US large-cap companies with the highest levels of gender diversity on their boards of directors and in senior leadership positions within their sectors.
According to an MSCI1 study tracking stock performance between December 2009 and August 2015, companies with at least three female board members on their corporate boards outperformed others in overall return on equity by more than 36%. Despite these findings, American women account for an average of just 16 percent of the members of executive teams, State Street reported.
SHE features a diversified portfolio of 144 stocks across all U.S. sectors with the goal of isolating gender diversity as the primary factor exposure. The fund hopes to empower investors to encourage more gender diverse leadership.
2) Vanguard Launches Core Bond Fund
Vanguard introduced the Vanguard Core Bond Fund (VCORX), which invests primarily in high-quality bonds across the investment grade market, including Treasury, mortgage-backed, corporate and asset-backed securities of varying yields and maturities. The fund will limit its exposure to noninvestment-grade bonds to 5% of assets.
The fund is actively managed, employs a risk-controlled approach and seeks to outperform the broad-investment-grade U.S. fixed income market through disciplined security selection, sector allocation and duration decisions.
3) W.E. Donoghue Adds Momentum Index
W.E. Donoghue & Co. launched the Power Momentum Total Return Index (MOJO).
