ProShare Advisors has launched two more short international exchange-traded funds on the American Stock Exchange, following the launch of the first two in the series last month.
ProShare Advisors has launched two more short international exchange-traded funds on the American Stock Exchange, following the launch of the first two in the series last month. A further two short international ETFs are scheduled for launch later in November. ProShares, which now 56 ETFs, all listed on the Amex, recently passed the USD9bn mark in assets under management.
The UltraShort MSCI Emerging Markets ETF seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, that correspond to twice the inverse of the daily performance of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, while the Short MSCI Emerging Markets ETF seeks daily investment results corresponding to the inverse of the index’s daily performance.
The MSCI Emerging Markets Index consists of 25 emerging market country indices covering Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand and Turkey. The index includes companies with market capitalisation between USD99m and USD99bn, and the average capitalisation of companies in the index is USD3bn.
On October 25 ProShares launched short and ultra-short products based on the MSCI EAFE Index, which consists 21 developed market country indices covering Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. The index includes companies with market capitalisation between USD437m and USD234bn, with an average across the index of some USD12bn.
Later this month ProShares plans to launch ultra-short ETFs offering double inverse exposure to the MSCI Japan Index and the FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index. Following these launches, the ProShares line-up offering short exposure to a wide range of US and international markets, capitalisation sizes and investment styles will reach 35.
‘The Amex continues to support leading ETF issuers in bringing ground-breaking products to the marketplace,’ says Scott Ebner, senior vice-president of the Amex ETF Marketplace. ‘We are proud to have been selected to list these new ProShares, which offer inverse and leveraged inverse exposure to emerging markets indices.’
ProShares chairman and chief executive Michael Sapir says: ‘The dramatic acceptance of ProShares has been fuelled by investors looking to go beyond the basics and expand the strategies they employ in their portfolios. Shorting strategies have been used by serious investors such as institutions and hedge funds for years.
‘By introducing short ETFs to the marketplace – first on US market indices and now on international – we have opened up opportunities for more investors to use short strategies to manage risk or to seek to benefit from market declines.’
Sapir says Short and UltraShort ProShares funds offer many advantages over shorting baskets of stocks, individual stocks or ETFs. Investors can achieve short exposure without opening a margin account, and can lose only the amount that they invest, whereas when they short stocks, baskets or ETFs, their losses are theoretically unlimited.
ProShares is part of the USD16bn ProFunds Group, which also includes more than 60 ProFunds mutual funds and whose product offering also includes non-exchange traded mutual funds offering magnified and inverse exposure to market index performance.
