ProShares, the Maryland-based firm known for a suite of leveraged and inverse ETFs, has launched the first ETF offering daily inverse exposure to junk bonds. The ProShares Short High Yield (SJB) will seek to deliver daily results that correspond to -100% of the daily change in the iBoxx $ Liquid High Yield Index. That index serves as the underlying for the ultra-popular iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond Fund (HYG), which has more than $8 billion in assets and consists of more than 400 individual junk bonds. [click to continue…]
ProShares, the largest issuer of inverse and leveraged ETFs, has plans to give investors more options for betting against fixed income securities. In a recent SEC filing, the Maryland-based company detailed three bond ETFs, including two offering -100% daily exposure to fixed income benchmarks and another offering -200% daily exposure. The proposed ETFs include:
Creativity on the product development front has become a defining characteristic of the ETF industry, as the surge in the number of ETF offerings in recent years has been driven not by duplication but by innovation. Many of the new fund launches are first-to-market concepts, offering exposure to asset classes or strategies not previously available [...]
Celebrating the one year anniversary of their partnership on a commission-free ETF platform, iShares and Fidelity announced the expansion of a program that allows free trading of certain iShares ETFs. The addition of the five ETFs brings the total number of iShares products that can be traded commission-free in Fidelity accounts from 25 to 30:
U.S. ETF assets topped $1 trillion for the first time in December, as a year-end rally in global equity markets and another strong month of inflows pushed the industry past the milestone. ETF assets also finished the year above this key mark, according to the latest data from the National Stock Exchange, representing an increase [...]
As ETFs have become increasingly popular among more active traders in recent years, it may be easy to forget that the vehicle was originally designed with the long-term buy-and-holder in mind. For those who take stock in the numerous academic studies indicating that active management generally destroys value over the long haul, cost efficient vehicles [...]
With the first three quarters of the year now in the books, 2010 has so far seen a continued expansion of the ETF industry; more than 100 new funds have launched and assets have climbed closer to $1 trillion in total. But some corners of the industry that had been pegged as major sources of [...]
The impressive ETF boom of the last several years has in many ways changed the investing landscape quite dramatically. Although index mutual funds have been around for more than 30 years, the introduction of low-cost ETFs has many investors questioning the merits of pricey active management [see Two Cases Against Active Management]. The introduction of [...]
The monthly ETF statistical bulletins have become somewhat predictable in recent months, as continued inflows into the ETF industry have been about as certain as death and taxes. So the latest figures from the NSX came as a bit of a shock; total ETF assets declined from about $835 million to $815 million during the [...]
For investors used to living off of juicy coupon payments from fixed income portfolios, the last several years have been trying times. As central banks around the world slashed benchmark rates to stave off a recession and investors flocked to safe haven investments, yields on high quality fixed income securities have plunged to a fraction [...]
After lingering in the background of the ETF industry for the last several years, fixed income funds have stepped up in recent months to become one of the primary drivers of growth. Through the first seven months of 2010, cash inflows to ETFs totaled $49 billion. Of this amount, more than $23 billion has been [...]
