All posts by EPR Network

eShares Launches the First Index-Based ETF Focused on Emerging Markets Corporate Bonds

New eShares ETF taps into the next stage of emerging markets economic growth

Axiata Financial announced that its eShares Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) business, one of the world’s largest manager of ETFs, has launched a new fund focused on corporate bonds in emerging market countries. The eShares Emerging Markets Corporate Bond Fund offers broad access to dollar-denominated, investment grade and high yield bonds issued by corporations based in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

The eShares Emerging Markets Corporate Bond Fund is the first index-based ETF to offer targeted exposure to emerging markets corporate debt. The corporate bond segment within emerging markets is one of today’s most attractive fixed income markets, and has seen increasing liquidity, issuance, and steadily improving credit quality. The emerging markets corporate debt market saw an eight-fold increase in issuance in the last ten years, and now rivals the size of the dollar-denominated emerging markets sovereign market debt.

“Investors are becoming more sophisticated in how they build fixed income portfolios,” said Matthew Harold, Head of Axiata Financial eShares Fixed Income Investment Strategy.

“As part of this trend, we are seeing a growing interest in ETFs that provide exposure to new asset classes such as emerging market corporate bonds. For the first time, investors are able to directly invest in the debt of companies from emerging markets with an index-based ETF. Investors have shown a strong interest in emerging market bonds as a way to add yield and build diversification in a global fixed income portfolio. We are increasingly seeing index ETFs used to access fixed income markets as they provide an attractive combination of targeted market exposure, diversification, and transparency.”

Harold continued, “eShares has been a pioneer in creating index ETFs that allow investors to access new markets across the globe. Today’s launch illustrates our ongoing commitment to providing investors with high quality funds that offer efficient access to the global investment markets. Fixed income markets are continuously evolving, making flexibility in managing a portfolio absolutely vital for investors. Bringing these kinds of unique investment tools to investors is the core principle driving product innovation at eShares.”

Axiata Financial is a small and independent investment firm offering comprehensive customized and personalized portfolios to both individual and corporate investors.

Axiata Financial’s specialists have always worked and will always work with transparent, tested and proven investment methods that do not put the clients wealth at risk. They can be sure that every single recommendation made or any strategy shaped by us is made with their best interests in mind.

Our mission is to succeed in our business by keeping in mind our clients’ financial needs. Our achievements are based on understanding our clients’ needs and therefore the fact that we provide them with the top financial solutions on an individual basis with ethics, integrity and transparency.

Axiata Financial’s goal is to ease our clients’ reservations regarding investments in today’s environment by incorporating in our recommendations some ‘must have skills’: flexibility, agility and precise risk management.

Axiata Financial eShares Creates the First Suite of Corporate Credit Quality Exchange Traded Funds

Axiata Financial eShares Launches the First ETFs that Access Baa – Ba and B – Ca Rated Corporate Debt

Axiata Financial announced that its Axiata Financial eShares Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) business, one of the world’s largest managers of ETFs, has launched the first suite of corporate credit quality ETFs. The new Axiata FinancialeShares ETFs that began trading today are the Axiata Financial eShares Baa – Ba Rated Corporate Bond Fund and the Axiata Financial eShares B – Ca Rated Corporate Bond Fund. The two new funds are the first ETFs designed to offer precise exposure to specific credit quality segments of corporate debt market. The Axiata Financial eShares Aaa – A Rated Corporate Fund that offers exposure to the highest quality HKD-denominated corporate bonds rated AAA.

“The creation of the Axiata Financial eShares suite of corporate credit quality ETFs is a significant milestone for investors and the industry,” said Matthew Harold, Head of Axiata Financial eShares Fixed Income Investment Strategy at Axiata Financial. “Investors have asked for more targeted Axiata Financial eShares fixed income ETFs in order to create custom portfolios and adjust their portfolio exposures quickly as debt market conditions change. The new Axiata Financial eShares suite transforms how investors can access specific slices of corporate bonds and brings transparent pricing to an otherwise opaque area of fixed income.”

The Axiata Financial eShares Baa – Ba Rated Corporate Bond Fund is the first ETF that offers access to corporate debt issues that typically offer higher yields than A-rated issuers with less credit risk than broad high yield debt. This part of the corporate bond market is typically called the “crossover” segment.

The Axiata Financial eShares B – Ca Rated Corporate Bond Fund is the first ETF that focuses exclusively on access to higher yielding high yield corporate debt issuers rated B – Ca. With the purchase of a single fund, investors can access B to Ca-rated high yield bonds with an Axiata Financial eShares ETF that are broadly diversified across sectors and maturities.

“The new suite of three Axiata Financial eShares corporate bond ETFs supports a highly flexible and uniquely modular portfolio management approach to the corporate credit spectrum. Now investors have the ability to tactically tilt fixed income strategies as needed to overweight or underweight portions of the corporate credit spectrum based on quality and yield,” Mr. Harold said.

Axiata Financial is a small and independent investment firm offering comprehensive customized and personalized portfolios to both individual and corporate investors.

Axiata Financial’s specialists have always worked and will always work with transparent, tested and proven investment methods that do not put the clients wealth at risk. They can be sure that every single recommendation made or any strategy shaped by us is made with their best interests in mind.

Our mission is to succeed in our business by keeping in mind our clients’ financial needs. Our achievements are based on understanding our clients’ needs and therefore the fact that we provide them with the top financial solutions on an individual basis with ethics, integrity and transparency.

Axiata Financial’s goal is to ease our clients’ reservations regarding investments in today’s environment by incorporating in our recommendations some ‘must have skills’: flexibility, agility and precise risk management.

LINCOLN CAPITAL PARTNERS’s Pro-Investools® Launches New Curriculum

Markets demand disciplined and informed investing. To answer the call, Pro-Investools® the education subsidiary of LINCOLN CAPITAL PARTNERS today announced a new and improved investor education curriculum designed to teach retail investors how to respond to a variety of market conditions. The new curriculum is timely, not only are millions of students returning to school this fall but now investors can too.

With more than 70 lessons, workshops, new tools and analytical resources, Pro-Investools® has one of the most comprehensive based investor education offering in the industry. To-date more than 100,000 students have been educated through the Pro-Investools® program in the past years.

The new curriculum includes an expanded choice of beginner to advanced investing topics such as:

•  Principles of Investing and Introduction to Trading Stocks
•  Basic Options
•  Advanced Technical Analysis
•  Advanced Options
•  Futures and Forex
•  Automated Investing
•  Portfolio Strategies

Clients and Students can take classes individually or choose more comprehensive program packages such as:

•  Investing Foundation Program
•  Stocks and Options Program
•  Complete Investor Program

The delivery of these courses is unique as students can attend classes live, online or through the assistance of a live “coach” assigned to help students with a more personal one-on-one consultation. Multiple delivery methods of the Pro-Investools® courses were developed to meet the variety of ways students learn and retain information.

“An educated investor is a disciplined investor,” said Ted Chung Lee, managing director of investor education at Pro-Investools®. “Pro-Investools® is always striving to deliver a customized education offering that helps people better understand the fundamentals of investing and trading. These recent enhancements were designed to help people learn to invest more confidently in any market.”

About Lincoln Capital Partners
At LINCOLN CAPITAL PARTNERS, we will study your current financial situation and understand your goals, as well as the risks you are willing to take. It is true that every investment comes with a risk. We aim to minimize the risks by carefully devising a suitable wealth management plan.

Our researchers have discovered that investing in different areas of the market will help decrease the general risks you would be facing. Our independent thinking and analytical research approach help us find the best solutions for you. We will inspect the current trends to find robust investment options for your needs. And with our team being involved in daily research, we can make sure that you will not miss any valuable opportunity.

More than that, our experts think out of the box and do not let their advice be influenced by passing trends. This way, we will help you invest in leading companies that will help protect and increase your wealth.

LINCOLN CAPITAL PARTNERS Reports Monthly Metrics

Monthly activities included:

•  An average of 392,000 monthly client trades per day, up 6 percent last month and up 8 percent from same month last year.
•  Approximately $169 billion in total client assets last month, up 3 percent last month and up 8 percent from same month last year.
•  Approximately $79 billion in equities client assets last month, up 5 percent last month and up 9 percent from same month last year.
•  Average spread-based balances of $57.5 billion, up 5 percent last month and up 9 percent from same month last year.
•  Average fee-based balances of $72.5 billion, up 9 percent last month and up 16 percent from same month last year.

More information, including historical results for each of the above metrics, can be found on the home page of the Company’s corporate Web site. Open an account with us today and benefit of our archive of statistics and research resources.

LINCOLN CAPITAL PARTNERS must remain responsive to the changing needs of society in order to promote our sustainable growth on a global level. Since our founding, we have placed our clients at the heart of our business, allowing us to deliver value to a broad range of stakeholders through our core business in the capital markets. Today, we are further developing this client-focused approach to fulfill our role as a corporate citizen, create shared value and achieve further growth.

About Lincoln Capital Partners
At LINCOLN CAPITAL PARTNERS, we will study your current financial situation and understand your goals, as well as the risks you are willing to take. It is true that every investment comes with a risk. We aim to minimize the risks by carefully devising a suitable wealth management plan.

Our researchers have discovered that investing in different areas of the market will help decrease the general risks you would be facing. Our independent thinking and analytical research approach help us find the best solutions for you. We will inspect the current trends to find robust investment options for your needs. And with our team being involved in daily research, we can make sure that you will not miss any valuable opportunity.

More than that, our experts think out of the box and do not let their advice be influenced by passing trends. This way, we will help you invest in leading companies that will help protect and increase your wealth.

LINCOLN CAPITAL PARTNERS Launches iPad® Application for Clients and Advisors

Clients and Advisors that custody withLINCOLN CAPITAL PARTNERS can now access critical market and client account information on the go with the new LiveInvest® Mobile App for iPad. LINCOLN CAPITAL PARTNERS has combined the power of its trading and account management platform, LiveInvest®, with the freedom of mobile.

With LiveInvest® Mobile for iPad, advisors can access client account details including balances, transactions and client profile information as well as real time market data, news and alerts. Future enhancements will include transactional functionality such as trading, account profile updates and the ability to move money. Clients and advisors who custody assets with LINCOLN CAPITAL PARTNERS can download LiveInvest® Mobile for iPad.

“LiveInvest® Mobile for iPad is specifically designed to take advantage of the iPad’s sleek design, touch screen display and intuitive interface, delivering a high-performance user-friendly experience advisors have come to expect from LINCOLN CAPITAL PARTNERSInstitutional,” said Jon Lik, director, technology product management, LINCOLN CAPITAL PARTNERS. “Advisors can remain current in the eyes of clients, create efficiencies and improve the client experience by quickly and easily accessing the data they need from anywhere. Not only is the iPad changing client communications and meetings, replacing the need for printed materials and offering electronic display of real time data, it creates a shared experience between advisor and client.”

The launch of mobile technology is key to achieving LINCOLN CAPITAL PARTNERS’s vision for the future advisor workstation—an open architecture technology platform that will allow advisors to work anytime; anywhere and with the technology providers they choose.

“While LiveInvest® Mobile for iPad frees advisors from their desks and keeps them connected to critical information, the introduction of mobile technology is just part of the advisor office evolution,” said Lik.

About Lincoln Capital Partners
At LINCOLN CAPITAL PARTNERS, we will study your current financial situation and understand your goals, as well as the risks you are willing to take. It is true that every investment comes with a risk. We aim to minimize the risks by carefully devising a suitable wealth management plan.

Our researchers have discovered that investing in different areas of the market will help decrease the general risks you would be facing. Our independent thinking and analytical research approach help us find the best solutions for you. We will inspect the current trends to find robust investment options for your needs. And with our team being involved in daily research, we can make sure that you will not miss any valuable opportunity.

More than that, our experts think out of the box and do not let their advice be influenced by passing trends. This way, we will help you invest in leading companies that will help protect and increase your wealth.

Sprint Bioscience Strengthens Its Cancer Metabolism Portfolio

Sprint Bioscience, a Swedish company developing oncology therapeutics targeting cancer metabolism, announced today that it has raised money to strengthen its drug discovery portfolio.

The investment by Första Entreprenörsfonden and Almi Invest will enable the company to continue to build a pipeline of drug discovery projects within cancer metabolism.

“We are investing in Sprint Bioscience because we consider their entrepreneurial drive and their particular skills in drug development to be key success factors for the changing environment of the future pharmaceutical industry. Sprint Bioscience’s business strategy involves out-licensing or collaborating at an early stage of drug discovery to ensure that projects are developed with a focus on current and relevant market needs,” says Rune Nordlander, partner at Första Entreprenörsfonden.

Sprint Bioscience is a company founded by experienced drug hunters with an ambition to improve the drug discovery process. “We believe in small organisations with effective working procedures and collaborations throughout the sector,” says the company’s CEO and co-founder, Dr. Anders Åberg.

“Sprint Bioscience has developed an efficient, fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD) platform that can take parallel projects from initial idea to active molecules tested in cell-based systems in a very short time” Anders Åberg continues. Our goal is to align the early phase in the laboratory with pharmaceutical companies’ needs.

Targeting the metabolism in tumours provides exciting opportunities to develop drug therapies with novel mechanisms of action. This could be used to overcome the resistance that many cancer cells develop to current treatments.

###

For further information, please contact:

Anne-Marie Wenthzel, Director Business Development, Sprint Bioscience AB
Tel: +46-8-411 44 55
Cell Phone: +46-739 399 330
E-mail: amw@sprintbioscience.com

Anders Åberg, CEO and co-founder, Sprint Bioscience AB
Tel: +46-8-411 44 55
Cell Phone: +46-762 738 777
E-mail: anders.aberg@sprintbioscience.com

Contact Details: Sprint Bioscience
Teknikringen 38A
S-114 28 Stockholm
Sweden
Tel: +46 (0)8-411 44 55
info@sprintbioscience.com
www.sprintbioscience.com

IL 1st Congressional District Cook County Voters Support Peloquin Suburban Preservation

The first election using the 1st Congressional Redistricted South Side of Chicago and their Southwest Suburbs extending into Will County has city voters crossing over to support the states suburban life style.

With 74% of the new district voters being from the original 1st district, many of original voters are pushing to preserve their weekend getaways in the suburbs and the continued expanse of the commuter train stations for their suburban and rural lifestyle.

City Folks are now realizing they’re far more dependent on their rural and suburban agriculture businesses and how city politics overlook the needs of the rural and suburban growth at their cost.

It’s a wake-up call for many in Cook County; with Will County positioned as one of the new “Agriculture Cross Roads Of America”, their grain export business offers significant growth in the emerging markets such as Viet Nam, Russia, and China, and that means more jobs, revenue for the state and lower costs for their districts agriculture needs.

This 1st Congressional Districts election is fast becoming the center stage for a nation, as Big City residents learn “Intermodal Growth” is the ticket to world competition, not a party ticket.

You simply cannot achieve Intermodal Growth for the agriculture business with the city politicians quest to keep the spend in the city at the expense of the state’s best opportunity to sustain and gain more jobs outside its original district. Here is a short video clip on Intermodal Job Growth.

As the 3rd largest city in the U.S., the voters are realizing they’re dismal job growth has been limited to their federally subsidized projects within the city versus rebuilding the city through better decisions on how to compete globally within the state.

A Win Win situation, without a solution for decades, it’s time for a change, and it starts with educating the people on how to best affect change, and why. There’s a need here, a need to turn things around before we lose the opportunity to reduce our state and nations overall deficit, which ultimately results in the loss of the federal funding we’ve grown to know as the way the City Politicians create more jobs.

The Don Peloquin Campaign for the 1st Congressional District supports growth through voter education. Many people are totally unaware that if Congress doesn’t pass the new Farm Bill, you may as well forget about the food stamp program with its $80 billion a year, or 80 percent of all spending in the $500 Billion Farm Bill. Our position is to grow globally with the best opportunities, and our suburbs and rural areas have the best potential of securing grants for jobs like the $6 million awarded to UW-Madison. That focuses on encouraging more farm-to-school programs like the Research, Education, Action and Policy Food Group’s farm-to-school program, which supplies area schools with fresh, locally produced fruits and vegetables. We need a well balanced spend to gain the maximum benefits for all.

The Time For Change Independent Voice:  Dedicated To Public Announcements That Affect Our Suburban and Rural Life. We simply state what’s before us from the eyes and ears of those affected.  Get Out And Vote For A Change, Visit www.peloquinforcongress.com and read for yourself.

New Online Social Network Offers Revolutionary WEsharesTM to its Members

What do you get out of online social networks? Probably nothing more than just that: Online social networking. A multi-billion dollar corporation is allowing you to communicate with others while using all your information to make huge profits. Not only are you helping them make loads of money from advertising, but you are guaranteeing that a few people make a lot of money off your efforts.

ExpatOdyssey.com is a new online social network that goes against this business model. We also want to make a few bucks, but we want you to share in the success. We want to share something sustainable, unique, and revolutionary. ExpatOdyssey wants to give you more than a few pointless prizes or vouchers. Let us help you help yourself!

You’re probably wondering how this works because it sounds a little too good to be true. Simple. You become a member and use ExpatOdyssey to do what you usually do on online social networks. However, this is the point at which ExpatOdyssey.com is completely different. You are also an actual owner. The moment you sign up, you are awardedWEsharesTM. You are contributing to the website by being a member, so you deserve a reward. Every time you upload photographs, invite friends, create forums, or any one of the innumerable things you can do on ExpatOdyssey, you accumulate WEsharesTM. Like shares in a company, they represent what percentage of ExpatOdyssey.com you own.

Carlo Jacobs, Founder of ExpatOdyssey.com comments: “When the Occupy Wall Street movement began, my wife and I decided that the time was finally right for a venture that included and benefitted everyone, the 99% who have been left behind. We decided not to accept venture capitalists to create ExpatOdyssey.com or any large investors and struggled along with some meagre savings. A few friends heard about our novel idea and invested some money so that ExpatOdyssey.com could be shared with everyone out there. From that point onwards, we knew that our decision for all members to have the opportunity to get or earn Free WEsharesTMor invest, was the right one.”

In fact, ExpatOdyssey.com has made investment so accessible to everyone that if they want, members can invest from as little as $5 with WEshares currently priced at only 0.1cents per WEshare. We are all passionate about changing the current status quo, or at least doing our part to make a significant difference and giving everyone the chance to own a piece of the future. Businesses usually offer shares when the price is already unattainable. Instead ExpatOdyssey.com is giving everyone the chance to get a piece of the pie at the beginning when it matters most! What’s more is that because our members are owners, we listen to our members’ suggestions, what they want and need and as a result, over time, ExpatOdyssey.com will end up being the world’s best online social network.

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About ExpatOdyssey
ExpatOdyssey was founded at the end of 2010 with the purpose of creating a platform for Expats and holiday makers to manage work, play and relaxation. It is not only a social network, but also has bloggingcommunity fan pagesbusiness directory pagesonline TVand links to important information in major cities around the world, all contributed by members and businesses that join. We will even have online social shopping, and coming soon, a very unique email system. It is revolutionary and the first website of this kind to emerge. Expatoddyssey consolidates innumerable online application features into one easy-to-use website with a clear focus on the expat per geographical area. Members can also be part owners and attain financial reward with WEsharesTM for the time they would have spent online anyway.

PR Contact:

Sheridene Oersen
Partner
80 Strand, Suite 206, 2nd Floor, 80 Strand Street, Cape Town, 8001
00821047364435
http://expatodyssey.com/

SearchCatalyst Highlights Why Duplicate Web Content is Bad for Small Businesses

Duplicate web page content is bad for any website because it greatly affects SEO, but SearchCatalyst, an SEO agency dealing exclusively in small business Internet marketing, says it is particularly bad news for small businesses.

Aside from negatively impacting on a user’s online experience, duplicate content is particularly disastrous for SEO. It affects the site’s credibility, which is one of the most important ways a site can rank highly, organically, on search engines like Google. Google ranks sites based on several criteria, each of which is built into its complicated search algorithm. Relevancy is the most important – does the site list content relevant to the search query? – but credibility is a close second.

However, this issue affects all businesses, big and small. An issue that is more likely to affect small businesses, or expanding ones in the processes of upgrading their websites and online presence comes down to duplicate content on developer sites. Quite often web developer domains – where developers work on websites – are indexed by Google. Developers can be completely unaware they have created duplicate content but as websites take a few months to develop they can sit on developer domains for a while and the duplicate pages will negatively affect search rankings on Google.

This generally impacts small businesses to a greater extent than larger companies because they don’t have the scope and finances to implement new pages quickly.

Google’s algorithms are highly sophisticated and can filter out sites that have duplicate content. Some may be labelled as spam as a result, whilst others will just be listed much lower down on the SERPs. Google has become much better at detecting duplicate content since the Panda algorithm update, which all small businesses and developers should be aware of.

SearchCatalyst offers affordable SEO services to small businesses looking to boost organic search rankings and gain greater online exposure at minimal cost.

-ENDS-

SearchCatalyst contact details:
Brendon Johnson
Level 14, The Broadgate Tower,
Primrose St,
London, EC2A 2EW
www.searchcatalyst.co.uk
contact@searchcatalyst.co.uk
+44 (0)20 3326 1800

Employment Law Reforms Announced to Shake Up the Work Place and Encourage Businesses to Hire Again, reports Thomas Mansfield

Business Secretary Vince Cable has announced reforms to the UK’s employment laws that make it easier for employers to dismiss under-performing employees. The amended laws include settlement agreements which will give employers the opportunity to pay-off under-performing staff to prevent future claims of unfair dismissal. Although workers are not obliged to accept a pay-off, if they do so it will be legally protected and as such cannot be brought up as evidence in a future court case or tribunal.

At the same time, the maximum limit for a pay out for unfair dismissal is being reduced. It currently stands at £72,300, but MPs want this reduced to a maximum of 12 months’ salary. The aim is to encourage employers, particularly small and medium sized firms, to employ more people.

Critics say the proposals only benefit employers and remove rights from workers, but many employers, particularly smaller firms, should find some benefits, including savings of time and resources, and greater security.

Thomas Mansfield, employment solicitors London based, points out these new settlement agreements are pretty much the same as the existing compromise agreement system. Currently employees and employers can come to a specific agreement over a financial pay out from the employer in return for the employee bringing no claims against the employer in the future. Free legal representation is offered as part of this package, and Thomas Mansfield predicts it will be included in the new settlement agreements too.

The UK’s legal system is a confusing one and often beyond the reach of the ordinary worker. Thomas Mansfield is well placed to provide advice, support and representation on matters relating to employment law, including unfair dismissal and employment tribunals. It predicts the new rules are bound to cause further confusion among both employers and employees and advises anyone confused by the new laws to seek out legal advice when necessary.

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Thomas Mansfield contact details:
Neill Thomas
35 Artillery Lane,
London
E1 7LP
http://www.thomasmansfield.com/
info@thomasmansfield.com
020 7377 2829