As the American equity markets have come back strongly in 2011, many investors are growing increasingly concerned that the Federal Reserve will have to raise rates in the near future in order to combat rising commodity prices in an effort to stop inflation from wrecking havoc on the U.S. economy. Thanks to this notion, as well as concerns about the debt ceiling and mounting debt burden, some bond managers are becoming increasingly skeptical of the U.S. Treasury market. While many have voiced concerns, few warnings have commanded more attention that the one voiced recently by legendary fixed income guru Bill Gross of PIMCO. Gross, who runs the world’s largest bond fund, has been a harsh critic of U.S. fiscal and monetary policy in the months past, simultaneously pulling the fund out of a large chunk of its U.S. sovereign debt holdings. [click to continue…]
Investors have taken up an increasingly bearish outlook towards fixed income in recent month, as inflationary pressures continue to build and an ongoing economic recovery has increased the likelihood of rate hikes before the end of 2011. The last several weeks have seen ETF issuers roll out a number of products designed to offer inverse [...]
ProShares, the largest issuer of inverse and leveraged ETFs, continues to build out the portion of its product lineup offering opportunities to gain short exposure to fixed income securities. The new Short Investment Grade (IGS) will seek to deliver daily results that correspond to the inverse of the iBoxx $ Liquid Investment Grade Index, a [...]
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 [...]
Direxion, one of the largest providers of leveraged ETFs, has been extremely active on the product development front in 2010, rolling out a number of products that offer investors an opportunity to double down (or triple down) on various asset classes. But the company’s product line will shrink a bit in coming weeks, as firm [...]
JPMorgan, the financial behemoth responsible for the first exchange-traded product offering exposure to the MLP sector, expanded its ETN lineup on Tuesday by introducing two products offering inverse leveraged exposure to Treasuries. The new ETNs, the Double Short U.S. Long Bond Treasury Futures ETN (DSTJ) and the Double Short U.S. 10 Year Treasury Futures ETN [...]
With lingering uncertainty over the outlook for the global economy, safe havens have generated a tremendous amount of interest this year. While much of the attention has focused on gold and its continued run to new record highs, it is another asset class that has stolen the show in 2010. Long-term Treasuries have climbed steadily [...]
As the stock market continues to rise, seemingly running ahead of fundamentals, more and more investors are becoming concerned that the stocks are becoming overvalued, and that a downward correction may be just around the corner. While safe haven investments such as the U.S. dollar and gold are popular picks for investors looking to profit [...]
ProFunds Group, a leading provider of inverse and leveraged ETFs, launched today an ETF designed to provide short exposure to the market for long-term U.S. Treasuries. The ProShares Short 20+ Year Treasury (TBF) is designed to deliver the inverse of the return on the Barclays Capital 20+ Year U.S. Treasury Index for a single day. [...]
