Daily ETF Watch: Calamos’ 1st Fund Live

ETF newcomer Calamos ETF Trust, a Naperville, Ill.-based money manager known largely for its mutual funds focused on convertible securities, today is launching its first ETF, an active strategy that comes at a time when industry sources have high expectations for active exchange-traded funds.

The Calamos Focus Growth ETF (CFGE) will invest maily in growth-oriented companies with market capitalizations of more than $1 billion that the firm believes offer the best opportunities for growth, according to a regulatory filing detailing the new fund.

The ETF may also invest up to 25 percent of its assets in foreign securities, and may invest in equity securities issued by other investment companies, including money market funds. It has a net expense ratio of 0.90 percent, or $90 for every $10,000 invested.

Calamos is one of many firms lining up in the hopes of offering up active ETFs as the exchange-traded fund industry continues to grow. The notion of “active” to some in the ETF industry can extend to new-generation “smart beta” indexes. For example, J.P. Morgan last month launched its quasi-active smart-beta fund, the JPMorgan Diversified Return Global Equity ETF (JPGE | F).

To be perfectly clear, the new Calamos strategy is actively managed, whereas the J.P Morgan is based on an index.

ALPS To Offer ‘Sprott’-Branded Gold Miner ETF

ALPS, the ETF sponsor and fund-industry marketing firm, on Tuesday, July 15 plans to launch the Sprott Gold Miners ETF on NYSE Arca at a time when the yellow metal is on the rise due to widespread violence in the Middle East and renewed fears about Portugal’s financial sector.

The new fund, which will trade under the symbol “SGDM,” will be based on an index from Zack’s Index Services, but will carry the well-known Sprott brand. Sprott is a firm known for its investment products focused on precious metals, many of them closed-end funds.

The Sprott Gold Miners ETF’s index will track the performance of gold and silver mining companies whose stocks are traded on major U.S. exchanges, according to a regulatory filing. Its expense ratio is 0.57 percent, or $57 for every $10,000 invested.

Gold, and gold miners ETFs are thought of as safe-haven plays. It may help the new ALPS fund that investor fears are a bit stoked with Israeli-Palestinian violence flaring and one of Portugal’s banks running into trouble. To read more about gold miner ETFs, see read ETF.com’s sector report on global gold miner ETFs.

The launch was made public via a NYSE communique.

Name, Index Change

Also on Tuesday, July 15, Global X is changing the names and indexes of two of its country-specific ETFs, the Global X FTSE Norway (NORW | C-71) and the Global X FTSE Colombia 20 ETF (GXG | D-43).

NORW’s new name will be the Global X MSCI Norway ETF and it will replace the FTSE Norway 30 Index with the MSCI Norway IMI 25/50.

GXG will officially be renamed the Global X MSCI Colombia and it will replace the FTSE Colombia 20 Index with its newly adopted MSCI All Colombia Capped Index.

The ETFs’ name and index changes were announced via a NYSE communique.