Qatar Stock Exchange hosted an ETF Liquidity Provision workshop for the financial industry participants i.e. QSE broker members, custodians, Asset managers, and the QCSD.
The workshop was presented by David Murtagh, former head of European ETF trading desk at Susquehanna International Group (SIG) which is a leading market maker in Europe. The topics included in David presentation were an introduction on the ETF products, the creation and redemption process for ETF’s, the management of the ETF positions and the arbitrage opportunities for the Liquidity Providers.
The interactive workshop had active participation from the attendees who also discussed the ETF products for the Qatari market and the benefits it would bring to the investors by allowing them to diversify their holdings and to allow them new investment opportunities.
Liquidity provision (LP) is very critical for Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). In ETFS, LPs do not only provide liquidity allowing investors to buy and sell, but are also instrumental in the creation and redemption of units, which allows the ETF to grow, whilst ensuring that the ETF units pricing is adequately balanced against the value of the fund (the so called net asset value or NAV).
ETFs provide investors with the ability to buy and sell individual units, just like shares, of a fund which is designed to mimic a particular asset class or market sector. This allows investors to enjoy the benefits of asset diversification, without the associated costs of building the portfolio themselves. Examples of these ETFs are those which track an index, or those that track the price of a specific asset. ETFs are widely used by institutional investors and increasingly by financial advisors and retail investors to achieve passive exposure according to preferred investment strategies, allow investors big and small to build institutional-caliber portfolios, and gain convenient access to markets that would otherwise be difficult to invest in.
Established in 1995, the Doha Securities Market (DSM) officially commenced operations in May 1997. Since then the Exchange has grown to become one of the leading stock markets in the GCC region and for two consecutive years (2010, 2011), was the best performing stock Exchange in the GCC. The DSM was later renamed the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE). QSE currently has 43 listed companies and its market capitalization is over QR730 billion (US$200 billion).
Source : Qatar News Agency
