Products November 25, 2008

ProFunds Launches Short, Leveraged Exposure ETFs

ProFunds Group announced the launch of a dozen new exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Reported by

The firm said that the ETFs were the first ETFs in the U.S. to provide short exposure or to provide leveraged exposure to commodities or to the Euro and the Yen.

ProShares benchmarked to broad commodities and crude oil indexes and to the Euro and Yen will begin trading on the NYSE Arca today. ProShares benchmarked to gold and silver are expected to begin trading in the next few weeks.

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According to a press release, each fund is a series of ProShares Trust II and shares of each will trade separately on the NYSE Arca. Each fund will continuously offer and redeem its shares in blocks of 50,000 shares called Creation Units, which Authorized Participants may purchase and redeem directly from the funds. ProShare Capital Management LLC serves as the Trust’s sponsor.

ProShare Capital Management is part of ProFunds Group, which includes the family of 64 other short and leveraged ProShares ETFs, as well as ProFunds, which offers more than 115 ProFunds mutual funds.

Available Now

Fund nameTickerIndexDaily objective
Ultra DJ-AIG Commodity UCDDow Jones-AIG Commodity Index200%
UltraShort DJ-AIG CommodityCMDDow Jones-AIG Commodity Index200%
Ultra DJ-AIG Crude OilUCODow Jones-AIG Crude Oil Sub-Index200%
UltraShort DJ-AIG Crude Oil SCODow Jones-AIG Crude Oil Sub-Index-200%
Ultra EuroULEEUR/USD daily price change200%
UltraShort EuroEUOEUR/USD daily price change-200%
Ultra Yen YCLJPY/USD daily price change200%
UltraShort YenYCSJPY/USD daily price change-200%

Coming Soon

Ultra GoldUGLGold Bullion price, London p.m. fix200%
UltraShort GoldGLLGold Bullion price, London p.m. fix–200%
Ultra SilverAGQSilver bullion price, London fix200%
UltraShort SilverZSLSilver bullion price, London fix-200%

* Before fees and expenses.

Products November 25, 2008

MSCI Barra Adds to Islamic Indexes

MSCI Barra is expanding the MSCI Global Islamic Indexes family by extending the Emerging Markets coverage to include the Small Cap segment, and by adding coverage of 16 Frontier Markets countries.
Reported by

A news release said the change would increase the number of MSCI Islamic country indexes from 53 to 69. The resulting new indexes will include the MSCI Emerging Markets Islamic Investable Market Index and the MSCI Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries Islamic Investable Market Index.

“Demand for Islamic indexes continues to grow as Islamic investors look for ways to broaden their global exposure,” said Remy Briand, managing director and global head of Index Research at MSCI Barra, in the announcement. “The expansion of the MSCI Global Islamic Indexes to cover Emerging Markets Small Cap and Frontier Markets countries offers institutional investors deeper coverage of the Islamic investment opportunity set. As with all our indexes, our primary goals are to ensure that they continue to reflect the ever-changing global equity markets, and to provide our clients with relevant indexes which may be used for benchmarking and as the basis for index linked products.”

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The calculation of the new indexes will start Wednesday. The indexes will be added to the MSCI Equity Index products December 2.

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