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6 Inverse Leveraged ETFs Soaring To Start 2016

As fresh signs of a slowdown in China and a relentless slide in crude sparked off fears of a global slowdown, the U.S. stocks posted their worst five-day start to the year in history. The S&P 500 index plunged 6% while Dow Jones tumbled 6.2% last week. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index, which outperformed last year, lost 7.3%. Additionally, a strong dollar, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and weak corporate earnings are weighing heavily on investor sentiment. This is especially true as earnings in the S&P 500 are projected to decline 5.3% for Q4 2015. This would mark three consecutive quarters of a year-over-year decline in earnings since Q1 2009 to Q3 2009, as per the earnings Factset . Amid myriad woes, investors have little reason to believe that the bull market will complete its seventh year on March 9 and thus shunned U.S. equities. According to etf.com , investors pulled out $5.8 billion in capital from U.S. equity ETFs. This has resulted in huge demand for inverse or leveraged inverse ETFs for investors seeking to make big gains in a short span. In fact, many products provided outsized gains (over 30%) in the first week of 2016, though these involve a great deal of risk when compared to traditional products. Below, we have highlighted five such ETFs that crushed the market last week and should continue doing so at least for the near term if global sentiments remain volatile. These products either create an inverse long/short position or leveraged inverse long/short position in the underlying index through the use of swaps, options, future contracts and other financial instruments. Direxion Daily S&P Biotech Bear 3x Shares (NYSEARCA: LABD ) This product seeks to deliver thrice (3x or 300%) the inverse (opposite) daily performance of the S&P Biotechnology Select Industry Index. The fund has amassed $33.4 million in its asset base and average daily volume of more than 632,000 shares. It charges investors 95 bps in annual fees and expenses. The ETF delivered whopping returns of 51.8% in the first week of 2016. VelocityShares 3x Inverse Crude ETN (NYSEARCA: DWTI ) This product provides three times inverse exposure to the daily performance of the S&P GSCI Crude Oil Index Excess Return. The ETN is a bit pricey as it charges 1.35% in annual fees while average daily volume is solid at 1.4 million shares. It has managed $374 million in its asset base and surged 38.4% last week. ProShares UltraProShort Nasdaq Biotechnology (NASDAQ: ZBIO ) This fund seeks to deliver thrice the inverse performance of the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index. It has accumulated $12 million in its AUM and charges 95 bps in annual fees. Average trading volume is moderate, exchanging about 73,000 shares a day in hand. The fund gained nearly 38.1% in the same time frame. Direxion Daily FTSE China Bear 3x Shares (NYSEARCA: YANG ) This fund provides thrice the inverse return of the FTSE China 50 Index. The product has AUM of around $82.8 million and sees good trading volume of 251,000 shares a day on average. Expense ratio came in at 0.95%. YANG returned nearly 36.2% over the past one-week period. Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bear 3x Shares (NYSEARCA: SOXS ) This ETF provides three times inverse exposure to the PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index. It charges 0.95% in annual fees and trades in average daily volume of more than 117,000 shares. It has managed $45.9 million in its asset base and gained 33.3% last week. Direxion Daily Natural Gas Related Bear 3x Shares (NYSEARCA: GASX ) This product provides three times inverse exposure to the natural gas segment of the equity market, which tracks the ISE-Reverse Natural Gas Index. It has amassed $3.8 million in its asset base while volume is paltry at around 8,000 shares. Expense ratio came in at 0.95%. GASX was up 31.5% in the first week of 2016. Bottom Line As a caveat, investors should note that such products are extremely volatile and suitable only for short-term traders. Additionally, the daily rebalancing – when combined with leverage – may force these products to deviate significantly from the expected long-term performance figures. Still, for ETF investors who are bearish on the equities and oil for the near term, either of the above products could make an interesting choice. Clearly, a near-term short could be intriguing for those with high-risk tolerance, and a belief that the “trend is the friend” in this corner of the investing world. Original Post

Is It Time For Smart-Beta ETFs To Enter The Bond Markets?

By Detlef Glow The new year has started, but the financial markets are still affected by topics from the old year. One of the topics that has come up again is the liquidity of bonds in general-and bond funds in particular. From my point of view nearly all that can be said has been said about this topic. After all this discussion about liquidity in the bond markets and the possible implications for bond funds, especially exchange-traded funds (ETFs), one might raise the question of whether these issues could be addressed with smart-beta products. These products concentrate on the liquidity of securities in addition to using the two main drivers of performance-duration and credit risk. Since the liquidity of the underlying securities is already an issue for ETFs that track the broad indices, even “plain-vanilla” products are nowadays not far from being smart-beta products. That is because of the optimization techniques used to replicate the returns of the underlying index using the tradable securities in the index basket. In this regard a smart-beta strategy that employs the liquidity of the bonds would help to build liquid indices for all kinds of bond sectors, which could then easily be replicated by funds. In addition, a smart-beta approach could help investors overcome the major struggle of market-weighted bond indices: these indices give the highest weightings to issuers (companies, countries, etc.) with the highest outstanding debt in the respective investment universe. This approach can lead to high single-issuer risk within the portfolio, which is normally not the intention of an investor who buys into a broad market index. A smart-beta approach could limit the issuer risk by introducing a cap within the index methodology. From my point of view smart-beta ETFs could be the answer to the questions and concerns raised by investors around bond indices. Since investors tend to buy only products they understand, the index construction must be quite smart. At the same time it must be as simple as possible, so investors can easily understand the investment objective and the risk/return profile of the index and therefore of the ETF. That said, in my opinion it is time for smart beta to enter the bond markets. The views expressed are the views of the author, not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters.

Castlemaine Debuts 5 New Alternative Mutual Funds

Castlemaine Funds is looking to make a big splash in the liquid alts world in 2016 and beyond. Just less than three months after filing paperwork for its first quintet of alternative mutual funds , and clearly undeterred by some high profile fund closures , the firm simultaneously launched all five funds in the final week of December, just in time to ring in the New Year: New Firm, One Portfolio Manager and Five Funds Castlemaine LLC, the investment advisor to each fund, is based in New York City and was formed in 2015. The firm’s Chief Investment Officer and Chief Compliance Officer, Alfredo Viegas, is going to be a busy man. He is the sole portfolio manager for all five funds, each of which employs a different alternative investment strategy. Four of the five funds appear to be making direct investments in securities and building alternative investment portfolios, while the fifth (the Multi-Strategy Fund) invests in a collection of other funds. The Emerging Markets Opportunity Fund seeks high total returns with a secondary goal of generating investment income. Its investments include both long and short positions in equity and debt securities from issuers based in emerging-market countries or countries (such as Hong Kong and Singapore) with economies tied to emerging markets. Castlemaine’s Event Driven Fund pursues an objectives of capital appreciation by taking both long and short positions in equity securities, such as shares of stock and ETFs. The fund focuses on corporate events, such as mergers and bankruptcies, and combines its long/short equity positions with an options-trading strategy and up to 130% leverage. The Long/Short Fund also pursues an objectives of capital appreciation by taking both long and short positions in equity securities and ETFs. The fund invests in both U.S. and non-U.S. equities, and may also use up to 130% leverage, although it will generally fluctuate between 50% and 80% net-long exposure. The Castlemaine Market Neutral Fund invests in stocks, bonds, and options, with the primary and secondary objectives of total return and income generation, respectively. Its long and short positions are designed to cancel one another out on a net basis, providing “market neutral” exposure. And finally, the Castlemaine Multi-Strategy Fund operates as a “fund of funds” across a variety of alternative strategies, including those employed by both affiliated and unaffiliated funds. The fund uses Castlemaine’s “dynamic asset allocation” process in pursuit of optimal diversification and portfolio weightings that reflect prevailing market conditions. The Multi-Strategy Fund will allocate its assets to the following investment strategies: Long/Short Equity Event Driven Market Neutral Emerging Markets Long/Short Macro-Risk Parity Global Macro Unconstrained Bonds Managed Futures Convertible Arbitrage Capital Structure Arbitrage All five funds carry an investment management fee of 1.24%, and each is currently offered in a single share class. For more information, read the shared prospectus of all five funds . Jason Seagraves contributed to this article.