by Cinthia Murphy United States Commodity Funds, the firm behind the $1.25 billion U.S. Oil Fund (NYSEArca: USO), filed paperwork with U.S. regulators to market its first currency fund, this one a futures-based currency ETF that would serve up exposure to a basket of five currencies at a time. The…Read More

Commentary below courtesy of Paul Amery, IndexUniverse.eu Forbes columnist Ari Weinberg points out that bond ETFs should be seen as the “money market fund of tomorrow”, and he’s right. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are well-positioned to make significant inroads into the US$2.7 trillion money market fund (MMF) sector, which is fighting…Read More

  UBS is aiming to break into Europe’s exchange-traded fund big league following the listing of 64 of its funds on the London Stock Exchange, the largest number ever admitted to the LSE on a single day. According to the LSE, the launch, which follows the listing of a suite…Read More

[caption id="attachment_862" align="alignleft" width="114"] Chris Hempstead, WallachBeth Capital[/caption] It took only 18 months for assets in MLP exchange traded products to grow from almost nothing to nearly $7.5bb. What’s more amazing is that while the number of ETPs available in the market has grown significantly, nearly all of the inflow…Read More

By Christopher Condon on June 26, 2012 Exchange-traded funds are posing a new threat to the $7.8 trillion market for active mutual funds by challenging the notion ETFs are only good for tracking benchmarks. The $552 million First Trust Health Care AlphaDex Fund (FXH) (FXH), offered by Wheaton, Illinois-based First…Read More

Brendan Conway, June 22, 2012, 11:16 A.M. ET The popular exchange-traded note whose share issuance was capped last week by J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM) is already trading at a premium. Investors who hold the JPMorgan Alerian MLP Index exchange-traded note (AMJ) can either cash out now with unexpected profits or they can ride…Read More

Published June 21, 2012 Dow Jones Newswires Blackstone Group (BX) unit GSO Capital Partners has filed paperwork to launch the first actively managed exchange-traded fund dedicated to high-yield corporate loans, apparently sensing demand for floating-rate loans secured on company assets amid exaggerated price swings in fixed-rate "junk" bonds. GSO, based…Read More

June 19, 2012 Contango is Back The volatility futures curve is back in strong contango, and with it an opportunity to profit from the short trade on volatility linked ETFs/ETNs. For a primer on this trade, see previous articles here and here, but in short it's an attempt to profit…Read More

By Benzinga.com State Street's STT -0.55% State Street Global Advisors unit, the second-largest U.S. ETF sponsor, will introduce two new bond ETFs on Tuesday. The SPDR BofA Merrill Lynch Crossover Corporate Bond ETF will track an index that offers exposure to dollar-deonominated U.S.-issued BBB and BB-rated corporate debt. BBB is…Read More

  by Lisa Abramowicz Trading of exchange-traded funds that focus on junk bonds is soaring while volume in the underlying securities slumps as dwindling dealer holdings prompt investors to seek electronic platforms. Volumes in the two biggest ETFs in June have climbed 22 percent above the six-month average while overall…Read More

By Benzinga.com In a note out today, Goldman Sachs GS +1.96% said investors are continuing to increase usage of ETFs as hedging tools, a move that is "creating unintended consequences to their portfolios." Goldman notes that managers and analysts are increasingly creating less-than-desirable hedges due, in part, to surprisingly high…Read More

The ETF Professor, Benzinga Staff Writer JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) announced on Thursday that will cap issuance for the popular Alerian MLP Index ETN (NYSE: AMJ) at 129 million notes. The move is significant because with almost $4.2 billion in assets under management, the Alerian MLP Index ETN is the…Read More

Reported by IndexUniverse's Devon Layne and Olly Ludwig Kudos to IU for scooping the news media-- Renaissance Capital, a research and investment management firm known for its IPO Plus Aftermarket Fund, filed regulatory paperwork requesting permission to offer a broad swath of ETFs targeting U.S. and non-U.S. stocks and bonds,…Read More

Reporting from Devon Layne, IndexUniverse ETF model portfolio firms are gaining in popularity as FT Capital, Aquiline Capital Partners and other firms seek to enter the space by investing in such firms that specialize in ETF asset allocation strategies, according to an article on Reuters. ETF model portfolios, which invest…Read More

  Courtesy of CNBC..By: Lee Brodie Exchange traded funds are among the more popular ways to trade. Called ETFs on the Street they allow investors to diversify risk through a basket of stocks. A pro like trader Steve Grasso of Stuart Frankel who works on the floor of the NYSE,…Read More

Article from June 13 edition, written by Maureen Nevin Duffy Wall Street’s creative genius never runs out of new investment strategies for another exchange-traded fund based on one index or another. But in many cases, the funds barely reflect the actual securities in the indexes to which they are tied.…Read More

Courtesy of James Armstrong You know a market has arrived when the big kids start to play, and it became obvious that fixed-income exchange-traded funds were around to stay when the don of bonds—PIMCO—jumped into the game. With the current volatility of the equities markets, investors know they need to…Read More

  Man Group, Europe's largest hedge fund manager, has announced that its GLG Europe Plus Source ETF (MPFE:GR), launched in January 2011, has reached assets of $565m as of May 31 2012. The ETF, which tracks the long-only total return equity index Man GLG Europe Plus, created by Man Systematic…Read More