Daily ETF Watch: Alt Fund Launch Set

AdvisorShares on Wednesday, July 9, is launching the AdvisorShares Sunrise Multi-Strategy ETF (MULT), competing with a successful fund from IndexIQ at a time when other alternative strategies are going into registration.

The actively managed MULT tactically will invest both in long and short positions across a variety of asset classes by using ETFs, futures, foreign currencies and U.S. Treasurys, and may be invested in up to 50 different markets, the company said in a prepared statement.

The fund has an expense ratio of 1.89 percent, or $189 for every $10,000 invested.

Alternative investments, especially hedge funds, are vehicles that dampen volatility when markets are trading downward but that will trail broader markets in a surging market environment a la 2013, when the S&P 500 surged more than 30 percent but the average hedge fund gained 7.4 percent.

On the flip side, hedge funds lost on average of 18 percent in 2008 when the markets collapsed, while the S&P 500 fell some 37 percent.

IndexIQ markets the IQ Hedge Multi-Strategy Tracker ETF (QAI | B-73), a similar hedge-fund-type vehicle, but in an indexed wrapper. QAI has an annual expense ratio of 0.94 percent, or $94 for each $10,000 invested.

Additionally, Index IQ has filed paperwork to offer other hedge fund and private equity strategies in an ETF wrapper to retail investors who want to invest like the pros.

Ticker Updates

Effective July 7, iShares has changed the tickers on five muni bond ETFs as part of a broader branding shift within iShares covering its lineup of target-date maturity bond funds, according to an NYSE communique.

The ETFs getting new tickers include:

• iShares 2015 AMT-Free Muni Bond ETF (MUAD | B-45), (new ticker: IBMD)
• iShares 2016 AMT-Free Muni Bond ETF (MUAE | B-50) (new ticker: IBME)
• iShares 2017 AMT-Free Muni Bond ETF (MUAF| B-60) (new ticker: IBMF)
• iShares 2018 AMT-Free Muni Bond ETF (MUAG | C-37) (new ticker: IBMG)
• iShares 2019 AMT-Free Muni Bond ETF (MUAH) (new ticker: IBMH)

The target-date maturity muni lineup was an industry-first, and the San Francisco-based company also markets two separate suites of target-date maturity bond funds—one covering all investment sectors and the other canvassing all sectors save for financials. They are sold under the iShares Bonds brand name.