O’Shares has launched a new smart beta exchange traded fund, the O’Shares FTSE US Quality Dividend ETF on the NYSE Arca.
Trading under the ticker symbol OUSA, the fund provides access to large and mid-cap US issuers, selected based on quality, low volatility and dividend yield. It is the first in a series of smart-beta index-based ETFs expected to be listed in the US by O’Shares.
O’Shares was formed by ABC Shark Tank investor and CNBC contributor Kevin O’Leary, Chairman, and Connor O’Brien, CEO, who together also co-founded O’Leary Funds, a Canadian investment fund manager.
The 140 stocks in the index that OUSA tracks are selected from the FTSE USA Index, comprised of 600 of the largest U.S. equities. The 140 in the index had an average weighted market capitalisation of USD56 billion, a minimum market capitalisation of over USD750 million as of June 23, 2015, and is diversified across ten industry sectors, with the three largest sectors being consumer goods, health care and technology, and the three smallest being materials, financials and utilities.
“To make the cut for me, an ETF has to be created from stocks that have quality, low volatility, and dividend yield,” says Kevin O’Leary (pictured), Chairman. “There are thousands of ETFs on the market but I couldn’t find one that gave me all of these metrics together so I created my own ETFs, called O’Shares. My first is OUSA and because I wanted it to be liquid and available to investors globally I chose to list it on NYSE Arca, the premier exchange for listing ETFs.”
“Kevin O’Leary has brought entrepreneurship and capital raising into the living rooms of millions of Americans and we are pleased to welcome him to the New York Stock Exchange, the center of global capital markets,” says Steve Crutchfield, NYSE Group Head of Exchange-Traded Products, Options and Bonds.
