After the approval for spot Bitcoin ETFs on January 10, 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved a rule change that allows exchanges to list spot Ethereum ETFs in the U.S. on May 23, 2024. Nevertheless, the rule change will not lead to an immediate listing of Ethereum ETFs, since every single product needs its own approval from the SEC. This approval means that the U.S. is catching up with the European crypto ecosystem where Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies are available to all kind of investors via structured notes, so-called exchange traded notes (ETN). Obviously, there are

In the good old days, the name of a mutual fund gave investors a clear hint about the investment objective and/or strategy of the fund. Unfortunately, these days are over, and fund names have become another tool in the toolbox for product marketing. This means that product managers are seeking fund names which are catching the interest and, with this also, the money of investors. To achieve this, fund names often include buzzwords which are related to a market and/or investment trend. Therefore, it is no surprise that regulators around the world have begun to increase the pressure on the

When the Wall Street Journal published an article about the SEC’s investigation into a possible overstated declaration on the efforts to integrate ESG criteria at German asset manager DWS Group in August 2021, many market observers had to catch their breath. This is because the case could have consequences for the overall fund management industry that are not immediately apparent. The investigation is based on claims by the former head of sustainability at DWS, who alleged in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that the asset manager overstates how the firm uses sustainable investing criteria to manage its investments.

Elon Musk is finally getting his adult supervision. Robyn Denholm, finance chief at Australian telecom operator Telstra, will move from her boardroom seat at Tesla to the head of the table – and oversee the $60 billion electric-car maker’s erratic chief executive full-time. She will have to get tougher, though. Having an independent chair is a plus, even if it was forced on Musk by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A regulatory settlement followed his excessively confident public statements about a potential deal to take Tesla private. The company has plenty on its plate, from the hands-on task of ramping

Donald Trump has added new impetus to an old debate about corporate short-termism. The U.S. president took to Twitter on Friday to say that he has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to study allowing public companies to report earnings every six months, rather than quarterly. BlackRock Chief Executive Larry Fink had already slammed the practice. JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon and Warren Buffett earlier this year proposed doing away with quarterly guidance, but not quarterly reporting. And former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton derided “quarterly capitalism” in 2015; her solution focused on lowering the capital-gains tax the longer an investment was

Fiduciary Duties Need to Extend to Research Most of the coverage of the SEC’s recent proposal to replace the DOL Fiduciary Rule has focused on the different standards for brokers vs. advisors and the shortcomings of a disclosure-based approach to regulation. We agree with many of these criticisms, as we wrote last week before the proposal was released. However, the SEC’s proposal contains an even more fundamental flaw. Even if brokers were held to a fiduciary standard of conduct, the ambiguous interpretation of the fiduciary Duty of Care makes any regulation difficult to enforce and confusing for all parties. The SEC needs to offer a more

Uncertainty defined 2016. Analysts tried in vain to predict the Fed’s actions on interest rates. Changing commodity prices defied investor expectations. And of course, the presidential election provided ample drama for the markets. In the midst of all that uncertainty, investors grew more and more aware of the need for real diligence. The market is increasingly aware that the accounting constructs reported by companies (especially those non-GAAP results) don’t always represent the underlying economics of the business. In 2016: Big institutional investors began pushing companies to tie executive compensation to return on invested capital (ROIC) instead of GAAP EPS. The

Long live bitcoin. U.S. regulators resoundingly rejected a plan submitted by the Winkelvoss twins of Facebook fame to list an exchange-traded fund linked to the digital currency. At the same time, the ledger technology behind it is gaining traction on Wall Street. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s decision was sweeping, going beyond mere technicalities to focus on the fundamentals of the proposed Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust. Much of today’s trading takes place in unregulated Chinese markets that are widely suspected of allowing front-running, wash trades and other dodgy practices, the agency noted. That makes it impossible to have surveillance-sharing arrangements to