News review, October 31

First, we highlight the continued growth of the active ETF market. Earlier this week we received a press release from Franklin Templeton, which highlighted that the asset manager will be launching the Franklin ClearBridge US Smaller Companies UCITS ETF. The new ETF listed on the Deutsche Börse Xetra on 30 October and will list on London Stock Exchange, Euronext Paris and Borsa Italiana on November 3. It is registered for distribution in Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland (country of domicile), Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.

“The Nordics are maturing rapidly, with investors increasingly using ETFs not just for broad market exposure but for more targeted, outcome-driven allocations. Active ETFs have a vital role to play in this evolution, enabling investors to pursue active strategies with the same efficiency, cost-effectiveness and liquidity that they expect from traditional ETFs,” says Wictor Comstedt, senior ETF Sales Nordics at Franklin Templeton. This week we also learned that the Government Pension Fund Global (known as “the oil fund”) returned 5,8 per cent in the third quarter. Its equity holdings returned 7,7 per cent and fixed income returned 1,4 per cent.