ETF Odds & Ends: Closures Taking Off
Plus, iShares further expanded its family of iBonds ETFs.
The past week has been characterized by a significant number of completed and announced closures.
In addition to the announced shuttering of Transamerica’s family of five ETFs marketed under the DeltaShares brand name that is set for early April, ProShares announced eight pending closures, and four ETFs were shuttered during the week.
As of Monday, March 7, DWS’ Xtrackers family closed down the Xtrackers Eurozone Equity ETF (EURZ) and the Xtrackers Japan JPX-Nikkei 400 Equity ETF (JPN). And at the end of the week, two more closures finalized, with the Direxion Daily Russia Bull 2X Shares (RUSL) and the Siren Large Cap Blend Index ETF (SPQQ) both seeing their last day of trading on Friday.
Meanwhile, ProShares plans to halt trading on eight funds before market open on May 3. The closing funds include the following:
- ProShares Morningstar Alternatives Solution ETF (ALTS)
- ProShares UltraShort Australian Dollar (CROC)
- ProShares Short Oil & Gas (DDG)
- ProShares Short Term USD Emerging Markets Bond ETF (EMSH)
- ProShares Short Euro (EUFX)
- ProShares Managed Futures Strategy ETF (FUT)
- ProShares RAFI Long/Short (RALS)
- ProShares Short Basic Materials (SBM)
Those numbers add up to a total of 29 closures by early May. By comparison, there were 19 closures in 2021 during that time period.
iShares Adds To iBonds Family
It was also a fairly robust week for launches, with a total of seven new ETFs hitting the market—a big jump from the single launch that characterized the prior week. Among the new funds were two additions to the iShares iBonds family of high yield and income ETFs.
The rollout of the iShares iBonds 2028 Term High Yield and Income ETF (IBHH) and the iShares iBonds 2029 Term High Yield and Income ETF (IBHI) bring the total number of funds in that family to eight.
The iBonds ETFs cover various fixed income asset classes and offer exposure to bonds maturing within a specified year. This allows investors to use ETFs for strategies that would normally involve individual bonds, like laddering.
Russia-Driven Changes
With the war in Ukraine continuing to rage, there were a number of ETF-related developments during the week. For one thing, on Thursday, the $106 million iShares MSCI BRIC ETF (BKF) changed its name to the iShares MSCI BIC ETF, dropping the R that stood for Russia. The fund’s underlying index appears to have retained its old name, but since MSCI has removed Russia from its emerging market indexes, that’s really a labeling issue.
And still other Russia-related ETFs have seen creations halted as Russia equity markets became illiquid. The Franklin FTSE Russia ETF (FLRU) and the iShares MSCI Russia ETF (ERUS) were both closed to new creation orders as of March 1, while the same happened to the VanEck Russia Small Cap ETF (RSXJ) the very next day. Finally, the VanEck Russia ETF (RSX) closed to new creation orders on March 3.
Share Splits
Five ETFs from Charles Schwab underwent 2-for-1 forward share splits that became effective Friday. The affected ETFs are as follows:
- Schwab U.S. Broad Market ETF (SCHB)
- Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Growth ETF (SCHG)
- Schwab U.S. REIT ETF (SCHH)
- Schwab U.S. Large-Cap ETF (SCHX)
Contact Heather Bell at [email protected]
