Leveraged

In furthering its hold in the niche market, ProShares has filed to create 16 new exchange-traded funds, all of which will be triple leveraged. The funds look to be a threat to Direxion, another fund company which has competed directly with ProShares for the leveraged space. The 16 new funds are as follows: 1. UltraPro [...]

Taking advantage of two popular investment choices, UBS has released a new ETN centered on two products: index funds and gold. The fund will combine 100% long positions in both the S&P 500 index, as well as gold. The UBS E-TRACS S&P500 Gold Hedged Index ETN (SPGH: Quote, Profile, Advanced Chart, News) seeks to track [...]

As 2009 comes to an end, so do two funds created to track the Case-Shiller Housing Index. The funds, which created a firestorm of press when they were first created, could not draw enough assets to make them profitable for the issuer, who decided to close the funds on December 28. The Major Metro Housing [...]

Volume on US Treasury ETFs grew 10% higher than the average as investors took bets on how this week’s record issuance would be received by investors. The Treasury will auction a record of $118 billion in debt this week alone. Today, the US Treasury auctioned $44 billion worth of two-year notes to strong bidding from [...]

Investors who were bearish on the dollar during recession are flocking back into the USD for safety. The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund (UUP: Quote, Profile, Advanced Chart, News), which tracks twice the daily return of the US Dollar, will have to issue 240 million new shares just to keep up with the [...]

Despite the CTFC-inspired closure of the Direxion 3x Oil ETF Fund (DXO), Direxion is still planning to introduce additional leveraged products. The four new funds, however, will avoid the questionable commodities sectors and instead look for more traditional ETF plays. The following are the four proposed funds: 1. Direxion Daily S&P 500 Bull 3x Shares [...]

Exchange-traded funds are reaching the realm of a matured industry, having already faced major setbacks from the CTFC and attracting assets of more than $1 trillion around the world. With their monumental growth, exchange-traded funds have become an investment industry all their own. The next major step for exchange-traded funds is to grow from sector [...]

Close inspection into September’s ETF inflows suggests that investors are concerned about inflation. The top exchange-traded funds were anti-dollar and anti-US stocks. SPDR Gold Shares (GLD: Quote, Profile, Advanced Chart, News) raked in an astounding $2 billion, followed by iShares Barclay TIPS fund (TIP: Quote, Profile, Advanced Chart, News) at $847 million. Emerging market funds [...]

Investment Company Institute has released their exchange-traded fund scorecard for August 2009. Despite a month of relative inactivity for new issues, all ETF categories gained in assets. Investments in exchange-traded funds jumped from $639.92 billion in July to $656.91 billion in August, helped by rising stock prices and a slight increase in new issues. According [...]

PowerShares, a unit of Invesco, is putting its high-octane double and triple leveraged funds on the sidelines and introducing an uncharacteristic fund made up of US Federal debt obligations. The fund will invest in “Build America” bonds, which are a product of the 2009 stimulus package. PowerShares Build America Bond Portfolio will be the first [...]