New ProShares Short Foreign ETFs Arriving Just In Time?

ProShares will be doing the honors Thursday morning, Oct. 25, at The World’s Most Unnecessary Securities Exchange™, introducing Short and UltraShort—double-levered—ETFs, respectively EFZ and EFU, on the MSCI EAFE index. Coming next month: Short (EUM) and UltraShort (EEV) funds on the MSCI Emerging Markets, and UltraShorts on the MSCI Japan (EWV) and the FTSE/Xinhua 25 (FXP).

The plain vanilla ETFs on the same indexes took—in the elegant phraseology of Alchemy of Trading’s Stephen Vita—to the embalmer’s slab in Friday’s 20th Anniversary Memorial Carnage with degrees of enthusiasm largely proportionate to their recent runs. FXI was off 6.2 percent; EEM dropped 4.3 percent before working back a little after-hours; EFA was off 2.2 percent; while the entirely boring and range-bound EWJ, supported to some extent by yen gains over the US dollar, dropped just two percent.

The new ProShares, the first inverse issues on international indexes, are likely to be welcome trading fodder. Among US-listed ETFs, EFA and EEM ranked second and third in total assets, with $48.9 billion and $22.5 billion respectively, at Sep. 30; EWJ was 10th, with $11.8 billion; and FXI was 14th with $7.9 billion.

Positions: Long EEM, EWJ, FXI. And no prizes for guessing which ones yours truly has had too little of for not long enough, and which one he’s held too much of for not too much longer. Grrrrr.

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