Posted on 07/26/2012
- On July 13, First Trust filed paperwork with the SEC in an attempt to bring to market a multi-asset income ETF. The proposed First Trust Global Tactical Asset Allocation and Income Fund would seek total positive returns and attempt to provide current income while maintaining a consistent risk profile. The actively-managed ETF would be structured as a fund-of-funds, covering anywhere from 15 to 20 unique asset classes. The filing also mentioned that the fund would seek additional current income through the use of an optional overlay strategy.
- On July 16, First Trust filed paperwork seeking permission to create the proposed First Trust High Yield Fund. The Fund would hold high-yield debt securities and would be permitted to invest up to 15 percent of assets in senior floating rate loans and up to 15 percent of assets in illiquid securities.
- On July 17, ProShares launched a pair of ETFs which will offer leveraged exposure to the exchange rate between two of the world’s most heavily traded currencies, the US and Australian dollars. The ProShares UltraShort Australian Dollar [CROC] will attempt to achieve -2X daily returns to the AUD/USD cross rate, while the ProShares Ultra Australian Dollar [GDAY] will offer 2X leveraged daily exposure to the same benchmark. The funds will each charge an expense ratio of 0.95 percent.
- On July 18, UBS launched the UBS ETRACS Alerian MLP Index ETN [AMU] which offers exposure to a basket of about 50 publicly-traded energy Master Limited Partnerships. The ETN’s expense ratio is 0.80 percent which is slightly cheaper than its competitor, the AMJ, which tracks the same index and charges 0.85 percent.
