August 13, 2009
--- Leveraged exchange-traded-funds (ETFs) have caught the attention of
regulators, and now law firms have noticed the products as well. ---
One law firm announced a class action lawsuit against ProShares (a unit of ProShare Advisors LLC), and another law firm is investigating the sale of leveraged ETFs at several broker/dealer firms.
Monday, the law offices of Howard G. Smith announced that a class action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of people who purchased or otherwise acquired shares in the UltraShort Real Estate ProShares fund (the SRS Fund; ticker: SRS), an ETF offered by ProShares Trust (ProShares). The firm said the law suit is on behalf of people who acquired the shares traceable to ProShares’ “false and misleading Registration Statement, Prospectuses, and Statements of Additional Information … issued in connection with the SRS Fund’s shares.”
According to the law firm, ProShares sells its Ultra and UltraShort ETFs as simple directional plays. Meaning, ProShares Ultra ETFs are designed to go up when markets go up and UltraShort ETFs are designed to go up when markets go down.
The SRS Fund is one of ProShares’ UltraShort ETFs and seeks investment results that correspond to twice the inverse (–200%) daily performance of the Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate Index. The law firm contends that based on the performance of real estate sector, the SRS Fund should have appreciated by 78.4% in 2008. Instead, the SRS Fund fell 48.2%—“the antithesis of a directional play,” the law firm said.
The complaint alleges the defendants violated the Securities Act by failing to disclose that the SRS Fund is altogether defective as a directional investment play. It also says that ProShares failed to disclose all of the risks, such as: the severe consequences of high market volatility on the SRS Fund’s investment objective and performance, and the rarity of an inverse correlation between the SRS Fund and the DJREI over time.