Cessation of IShares ETF

Seems like IShares will cease offering several Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) to retail investors in Singapore from 14 Oct 2014. These include:

• IShares Core S&P500 ETF
• IShares MSCI Singapore ETF
• IShares US Technology ETF

The funds will still be listed on the SGX and a market maker will still be active to enable trading of the shares. Looks like an exit.

Not sure why they're exiting. Perhaps the take up volume has been too low to be worth their while. There is another ETF available for the Singapore fund, so that's not too bad. But looks like retail investors will have to turn to the US stock market to invest in S&P500 or US Technology ETFs.

The usual discussions that compare Unit Trust versus Exchange Traded Funds have never shed insight on something like this happening to ETF - i.e. "shelving". It's more commonly seen with Unit Trust as those with poor performance tend to be closed at some point, leading to survivorship effect - i.e. the remaining funds appear to show good track records, and hence create the impression that an investor can get good returns from Unit Trusts.

I wonder what will be the effect on the bid/ask price from here on? The last traded price was around US$199.

Thumbs down.