ETF Watch: New Filings (April 25 - May 6)

By Matthew Hougan

NEW FILINGS

Direxion Looks To Be A Triple Threat

Direxion Funds is looking to enter the ETF industry with a boom. The firm has filed with the SEC to create 36 new leveraged and inverse ETFs. Sounds like ProShares, right? Well, kind of, except the 18 “Bull” funds will attempt to capture THREE times the daily return of their underlying indexes, while the 18 “Bear” funds will attempt to capture THREE times the inverse of the daily return of their underlying indexes. By contrast, the popular ProShares ETFs aim to deliver just 2X the performance.

The filing covers Bull and Bear ETFs for each of the following indexes: the MSCI Broad Market Index, S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P MidCap 400 Index, Russell 2000 Index, Nikkei 225 Index, MSCI EAFE, MSCI Emerging Markets Index, S&P BRIC 40 Index, FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index, Indus India Index (which underlies the new PowerShares India Portfolio), S&P Latin America Index, MSCI Commodity-Related Equity Index (which covers stocks in commodity-related industries, Energy Select Sector Index, Financial Select Sector Index, Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate Index, and S&P U.S. Homebuilding Select Industry Index.

View the prospectus here.

WisdomTree Files for New International ETFs

A recent filing by WisdomTree shows the firm planning six new ETFs covering a variety of asset classes.

Two of the proposed funds will have a growth focus; they include the WisdomTree LargeCap Growth Fund and the WisdomTree International LargeCap Growth Fund. The decision to launch growth funds is interesting given that WisdomTree’s dividend-weighted indexes tend to have a value tilt. Component companies in each fund’s underlying index are selected based on four growth metrics: annual earnings per share growth, annual sales per share growth, annual book value per share growth and annual stock price growth. The domestic growth fund will be weighted by earnings, while the dividend-weighted international growth fund will cover non-U.S. emerging and developed markets.

Another proposed fund, the WisdomTree Middle East Dividend Fund, could be the first to focus on the region, depending on when it is launched. (PowerShares has a fund covering Africa and the Middle East currently in registration.) The countries to be covered by the fund include Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The filing also includes three “global” funds: the WisdomTree Global Dividend Fund, the WisdomTree Global SmallCap Dividend Fund and the WisdomTree Global Equity Income Fund. WisdomTree’s global region includes the U.S. and another 22 developed and 19 emerging markets. The global small-cap fund tracks an index covering the smallest 5% of the WisdomTree Global Dividend Index, and the global equity income fund tracks an index that includes the top 30% of the WisdomTree Global Dividend Index in terms of dividend yield.

Read the prospectus here

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