ETF Watch: Newcomer GraniteShares Plans Funds

GraniteShares, a firm new to the ETF space, has filed for three ETFs that are set to launch on the Bats exchange. The ETF issuer was founded and is led by William Rhind, who previously worked for the World Gold Council, creator of the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD).

The three proposed funds include two commodity funds and a master limited partnership ETF. They include the following:

The GraniteShares Bloomberg Commodity Index Investment Fund is basically a plain-vanilla broad commodity ETF that seeks to replicate the performance of the Bloomberg Commodity Index, which currently covers 20 different commodity futures contracts. Weights in the underlying index are based on production and liquidity. The fund will include a portfolio of high-quality fixed-income securities, such as Treasurys.         

The GraniteShares GSCI Commodity Index Investment Fund will do the same with the S&P GSCI Total Return Index, which is weighted by production and covers 22 individual commodity futures contracts. It, too, will include a fixed-income portfolio.

Meanwhile, the GraniteShares S&P MLP Index Investment Fund will track the S&P MLP Index, which also underlies three other MLP-focused exchange-traded products. The largest is the iPath S&P MLP ETN (IMLP), which has more than $196 million in assets under management.

The filing did not include tickers or expense ratios.

Bats Global Markets Exchange owns ETF.com.

Contact Heather Bell at [email protected].