The battle of press releases heated up Monday as Bear Stearns made public plans to launch what would be the first active exchange-traded fund.

"This is the first actual actively managed ETF to hit the marketplace," said Margo Cook, global head of Bear Stearns Asset Management's institutional business, during a morning interview.

But there's a hitch. The Bear Stearns Current Yield Fund (AMEX: YYY) won't actually start trading until March 18. In the ETF universe, eight days can be an eternity.

Still, in the fast-moving world of ETF launches where announcements are often made without any specific dates, the Bear Stearns move signaled a hopeful sign that years of anticipation could actually be moving closer to fruition.

A vast majority of mutual fund assets are in actively managed portfolios. Up until now, ETFs have been tied to indexes. Although those benchmarks have been getting more flexible in recent years, they're still a long way from running independently like most mutual funds.

Even though ETFs have outpaced active open-end mutual funds' growth for nine straight years, they still represent a much smaller base of assets. Many industry observers believe that the launch of true active ETFs will open the market up even more to a wider audience of investors. (See related story: Index Funds & ETFs Keep Gaining Market Share Vs. Active Managers.)

In short, some are likening the birth of active ETFs to the dawning of a new era in the $568.7 billion industry. They see a time when ETFs, both indexed and active, will compete directly for mainstream investors throughout most of the $11.7 trillion mutual fund marketplace.

It's little surprise then to find plenty of challengers lining up to seize the crown as the first active ETF. Among them are four prosepctive funds from one of the industry's most active players, PowerShares Capital Management.

Last week, PowerShares issued a press release declaring that group had received the first exemptive relief from the SEC to launch an active ETF. Unlike Bear Stearns, however, it listed no firm date for launching the fund, as other regulatory hurdles remained to be crossed.

Even without such details, however, news organizations ranging from Reuters to the Los Angeles Times ran stories that suggested that PowerShares had won the race to launch. The stories caused a stir among the rest of the field.

Also believed to be nearing the launch stage with active ETFs are WisdomTree Investments and Barclays Global Investors. Others in various stages include the Vanguard Group, Grail Advisors and XShares Advisors.

The smart money, however, has always been focused on Bear Stearns as being closest among ETF rivals already approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission for exemptive relief to issue active funds. (See related story: To The Point: Truth In Advertising.)

Cook says the firm decided to announce the fund Monday "because we have the authority to announce to the public. We've gotten all of the approvals necessary."

The portfolio has actually started beta, or test trading, according to sources. That presumably put it into a position of actually announcing a launch date.

But it's important to note that no matter who is first, Bear Stearns and PowerShares are competing in different areas of the market: YYY is an active money market fund, while PowerShares is looking to list both an short-duration bond fund and three actively managed equity funds.

The most YYY's weighted average maturity will extend to is one year. But Cook says the ETF's average should be closer to 180 days. "So it's just beyond a money market fund but just below a short-duration bond fund," she said.

YYY will also be different in that it won't follow any specific index. "This ETF is not index-based and it's not rules-based," Cook said. "It is truly actively managed."

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