ETF Aggregation for Sell Side
Start of Trading
The first ETF was the SPDR SPY, tracking the S&P 500 index of US equities, which started trading in 1993, and is the largest US and global ETF by assets today.
ETF Providers
ETF providers are mainly asset managers but they can also be white label platforms used by multiple asset managers.
ETF Issuer Data
ETF issuers are mainly asset managers and there are at least 200 of them globally. ETF experts ULTUMUS track assets, inflows and outflows across the industry.
Market Identifiers
A patchwork quilt of disparate identifiers can be like the babble of many tongues and act as an obstacle to smooth functioning and coordination in the ETF markets. Industry standard identifiers help to create a level playing field where ETF users can be agnostic between different vendors, and seek out the most efficient and best value providers.
Corporate Action and Dividend information
ETF investors and market makers need to take account of corporate actions both in ETFs, and in their underlying holdings (which can include other ETFs). As well as cash and scrip dividends, stock splits and consolidations, there are rights issues, other offerings, mergers and takeovers, and index additions, deletions and re-weightings (such as the Nasdaq 100 rebalance in July 2023) to consider. Timely, accurate and actionable data on all of these enables ETFs to operate like a Swiss watch rather than an old grandfather clock.
ETF Reference Data
Data including markets, pricing, legal entities, holdings, and corporate actions data needs to be swiftly gathered, cleaned, harmonised and turned into a user-friendly format with standard identifiers that can be easily used by the buy side, sell side and service providers: asset managers, market makers, and security services providers who want a “plug and play” solution for their front, middle and back office related activities.
ETF Fund Structure
ETFs are usually structured as an equity security, holding a basket of securities that make up the target index. They can also be structured as a debt security, based on a promissory note, and are then called Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs), though in practice ETNs’ performance profile is very similar to an ETF based on the same index. An important subset of ETNs is most Exchange Traded Commodities (ETCs), which are also collateralised with the underlying assets.
ETF Historic Flow Metrics
ULTUMUS tracks flow data globally, slicing and dicing it by region, asset class, ETF issuer, and specific ETFs, and other metrics. This lets investors identify the key trends behind the impressive asset growth the industry has seen. ETF assets have grown at around 15% per year since 2010, which is three times faster than traditional mutual funds, meaning that ETFs are growing their market share. Global ETF assets were USD 6.7 trillion at the end of 2022.
