• Page 1: New ETF listings and new ETFs in registration
• Page 2: ETF industry statistics?including weekly performance update
• Page 3: The complete list of ETFs (and ETNs) in registration

Note: Want to receive an email notice as soon as ETF Watch is posted?, Just click here to subscribe.

NEW LISTINGS

Claymore Offers A Smaller Slice Of China

The Claymore/AlphaShares China Small Cap Index ETF (AMEX: HAO) launched Wednesday, joining a field of established single-country portfolios already carving up the Asian giant.

HAO comes with a price tag of 0.70%. It includes about 120 different companies with market caps between $200 million and $1.5 billion. Components are cap-weighted, with a 5% maximum weight in the index. According to the index provider, the small size of the companies means less exposure to government-owned entities or financial companies.

Full coverage is available here.
The prospectus is available here.


PowerShares Preferred? Maybe Not For Now

Investors interested in owning preferred stocks rather than more common share classes via ETFs have a new option with this week’s launch of the PowerShares Preferred Portfolio (AMEX:PGX).

Preferred stocks are a hybrid investment vehicle that have some of the characteristics of bonds yet are priced closer to stocks. They're considered senior to common shares in liquidations and bankruptcies, but junior to other forms of corporate debt. The advantage to preferred stocks is that they have guaranteed dividend payments.

However, most preferred stocks are issued by financial companies, and PGX includes names like Citigroup and Wells Fargo, along with some other banks and mortgage-related companies hard-hit by the ongoing credit crunch. Not surprisingly, its underlying index – the Merrill Lynch Fixed Rate Preferred Securities Index – was down 11.31% in 2007.

PGX has an annual expense ratio of 0.50%.

Full coverage is available here.
The prospectus is available here.



NEW ETF FILINGS

Credit Derivative ETFs

A new ETF provider has filed papers with the SEC for four ETFs tracking credit default swap (CDS) contracts. CDS contracts are contracts offering insurance for bonds. If the bonds go bust, the CDS contracts guarantee full payment to the bondholders.

The funds will be launched under the “ETSpreads” brand name. The ETSpreads High-Yield Fund and the ETSpreads Investment-Grade Fund both track indexes from CDS IndexCo, part of the Markit Group. The ETSpreads Inverse High-Yield Fund and the ETSpreads Inverse Investment-Grade Fund, of course, offer the inverse of their underlying indexes’ returns.

The indexes rise when insurance gets more costly, suggesting higher risk of default.

The products would be the first ETFs to cover the credit derivatives market.

You can view the prospectus here.


MACRO Health Inflation

Macro Markets LLC, which is responsible for the MacroShares Oil Up Fund (UCR) and MacroShares Oil Down Fund (DCR) has another pair of Up/Down funds waiting in the wings. Just as the oil funds track the upward and downward movements of oil prices, the new funds will track the upward and downward movements of healthcare inflation, as measured by the healthcare segment of the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

The funds are essentially paired trusts that counterbalance each other. The funds set up a base rate of medical inflation – indicated right now in the prospectus at 4%, but subject to change. Should the pace of healthcare inflation rise, the price of the “Up” fund will also rise, while the price of the “Down” fund will fall. If healthcare inflation slows, the “Up” fund’s price will fall, while the “Down” fund’s price rises.

You can read the prospectus here.

1 | 2 | 3 |