ProShares, the largest issuer of geared ETFs that has made a push into the alternatives space, adding two more products to its lineup late last week. The new Ultra DJ-UBS Natural Gas (BOIL) and UltraShort DJ-UBS Natural Gas (KOLD) are both linked to the Dow Jones-UBS Natural Gas Subindex, a benchmark that consists of natural gas futures contracts. BOIL will seek to deliver daily results that correspond to 200% of the change in the underlying index, while KOLD will target -200% of the daily returns of the benchmark.
With the launch of the two new products ProShares now offers ten leveraged commodity funds, including ETFs linked to gold (UGL, GLL), silver (AGQ, ZSL), crude oil (UCO, SCO), and a broad basket of natural resource futures (UCD, CMD). “There has been strong demand for geared commodity ETFs, as investors have come to recognize the importance of commodities as part of their alternatives allocation,” said Michael L. Sapir, Chairman and CEO of ProShare Capital Management, the sponsor of the funds. “We are pleased to introduce the first geared ETFs designed to help investors manage risk or act on their views on natural gas.” [click to continue…]
Commodity ETPs can be extremely powerful tools for tapping into an asset class capable of providing both return enhancement and diversification benefits. With dozens of products available–there are more than 120 U.S.-listed commodity ETFs according to the ETF screener–picking the right fund for your investment objectives and risk tolerances can be challenging. Beyond the type [...]
iPath has introduced its Seasonal Natural Gas ETN (DCNG), giving investors yet another way to gain exposure to natural gas prices through exchange-traded products. The new ETN will be linked to the Barclays Capital Natural Gas Seasonal TR Index, a benchmark that is designed to reflect the returns that are potentially available by maintaining an [...]
In general, 2010 has been a pretty solid year for most portfolios. Despite lingering concerns about unemployment and mounting debt burdens, most global equity markets have moved higher on the year. Commodity markets have been red hot, with prices of many natural resources climbing to new highs thanks to strong demand from emerging markets and [...]
As the ETF industry has grown and evolved, the product lineup has become increasingly sophisticated. Many of the products now hitting the market are designed to address issues posed by earlier indexed products, as issuers strive to devise new strategies for accessing both traditional and exotic asset classes. A number of issuers, led by Schwab [...]
If the world’s history of man-made disasters has taught us anything, it is to learn from our mistakes. The 1979 Three Mile Island and 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor incidents put a damper on nuclear power plant construction that the U.S. still has not recovered from. Now, we are faced with the worst environmental disaster in our nation’s [...]
In recent years, ETF assets have climbed towards $1 trillion and the number of products has surged past 1,000. Much of the growth in both products and assets has been attributable to commodity ETFs, as investors have embraced the exchange-traded structure as an efficient way to add the benefits of natural resource exposure to their [...]
The last two years have seen a tremendous surge in the number of exchange-traded products available to U.S. investors. While there have been several “copycat” products to hit the market, the vast majority of new fund launches have focuses first-to-market ETFs unlike anything already out there. Skeptics have been saying for a while that all [...]
Since its launch in April 2007. the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) has endured a strange existence. After enjoying moderate success during its first 18 months–assets stood at more than $700 million at the end of 2008, UNG exploded as the natural gas craze hit and investors lined up for access to the “fuel [...]
Commodities are the new black in the world of investing, thanks in no small part to the rise of ETFs as the tool of choice in more and more portfolios. Commodity ETFs saw cash inflows of more than $30 billion in 2009, as total assets more than doubled on the year. According to the ETF [...]
The United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) has been one of the most perplexing exchange-traded products of 2009. The fund has lost almost 60% so far this year, but has seen cash billions of dollar in cash inflows ($5.4 billion through November, well more than the $4.0 billion in total assets the fund had at [...]
