Briefly:

Previous Brieflies this week: | MON | TUE | WED | THU |

Exchange traded funds will have to attract capital if they want to challenge mutual funds’ dominant market share, says Deloitte.

In a report released today, the auditor claims that several factors could enable ETFs to attract additional capital and become more profitable. ETFs need to be linked to less exotic indices, like commodities and equities.

Deloitte believes ETFs should focus on indices with long-term appeal, and should be designed to appeal to the needs of 401(k) investors and become more retail investor friendly.

“For retail investors hurt by market volatility over the last year, an ETF may be more appealing longer term than actively managed assets like mutual funds. When this perceived safety net is coupled with the tax efficiencies that are attractive to retail investors, it appears the stars may be aligning to end mutual funds’ 69-year dominance,” says Cary Stier, Deloitte’s U.S. asset management services leader.

• • •

Poll: Canadians don’t trust stockbrokers, bankers

When it comes to being ethical and trustworthy, physicians and pharmacists are tops with Canadians. Canadians, though, have no faith in business executives, stockbrokers or bankers.

Seventy-seven per cent of respondents to the Nanos Research poll, rated medical doctors as “high” or “very high” when it comes to honesty and ethics in their profession, while the figure was 73% for community pharmacists. Stockbrokers rated 18%, business executives 25% and bankers just 31%.

High school teachers (66%), police officers (58%) and clergy (50%) also did very well in the poll.

The poll was based on a national random telephone survey of 1,003 adult Canadians, between August 28 and September 2, 2009. The statistics of a random sample of 1,003 respondents are accurate to within 3.1%, 19 times out of 20.

• • •

Mackenzie Investments to merge funds

Mackenzie Financial Corp. investors have agreed to merge three key funds.

Mackenzie Saxon Money Market Fund will become part of the Mackenzie Sentinel Money Market Fund. Mackenzie Saxon Bond Fund will be joined with Mackenzie Sentinel Bond Fund and Keystone Cundill International Value Class will merge into Mackenzie Cundill International Class.

The investors of Mackenzie Saxon Funds also agreed to adopt the fixed rate administration fee structure utilized by the Mackenzie family of mutual funds.

The mergers will be instituted on September 25, 2009.

• • •

Russell alters Global Equity Portfolios

Russell Investments is making changes to both its Russell Sovereign Investment Program and LifePoints Portfolios.

In the changes announced Tuesday, Arrowstreet Capital L.P. has been added to the Russell Global Equity Pool, Clarivest Asset Management is no longer a sub-adviser in the Global Equity Pool and Arrowstreet has also been added to the Russell Global Equity Fund.

Also, Clarivest is no longer a sub-adviser in the Global Equity Fund.

(09/22/09)