...barring disastrous market activity over the next few days, September should mark the seventh consecutive up month for stocks...

ProShares Credit Suisse 130/30 ETF will trade on the NYSE Arca platform under the ticker CSM and will charge 0.95%. The fund will focus exclusively on U.S. large cap stocks - all taken from the Credit Suisse 130/30 Large-Cap Index. The index was first introduced in 2007,

Though it's unclear when the funds will actually launch, ProShares hopes to ultimately bring to market bullish and bearish 3x ETFs breaking down as follows (as verified by IndexUniverse's Murray Coleman):

On Tuesday, Northern Trust (NTRS) shocked the ETF world by announcing it was closing all 17 of its Exchange Traded Funds, effective February 10 before the open. Shares held past that date would be liquidated for their NAVs on February 20.

Fresh off a Wall Street Journal piece suggesting many recent end-of-day spikes in equity trading have been a direct result of the rapid growth in leveraged ETFs, Direxion launched its follow-up batch of 3X ETFs Wednesday, each the first of its kind. The new funds offer investors triple exposure to two MSCI indexes covering Developed ex-U.S. (EAFE) Markets and Emerging Markets, as well as the Russell 1000 Technology Index.

WisdomTree Investments (WSDT.PK) has taken its unique brand of fundamental indexing to a new level with today's launch of the WisdomTree LargeCap Growth ETF (NYSEArca: ROI), the first ETF of its kind. While other large-cap growth ETFs have used a traditional market cap-based approach to weight their components, ROI weights its underlying holdings according to cumulative net income over the prior four quarters, leading to some interesting indexing results. Before it can weight components, the WisdomTree LargeCap Growth Index, upon which ROI is based, whittles down a list of the top 1,000 companies by market cap to a mere 300 components, by focusing on earnings per share, sales per share, book value per share and price per share.

The NETS FTSE CNBC Global 300 Index Fund ETF (MYG) was launched last week on the NYSE Arca trading platform and has thus far gathered little momentum in the way of assets or trading volume. The new fund tracks a basket of 300 global stocks calculated by FTSE and components are weighted according to their total market cap within the basket.

Rydex launched a ninth CurrencyShares ETF on the NYSE Arca platform Thursday, giving investors the first Russian ruble exchange traded fund. The fund, which trades under the ticker symbol XRU, offers U.S. investors a long ruble/dollar pair trade. It holds 1,000 rubles per share and closed 3 cents above its NAV of $36.36 yesterday. The fund charges 0.40% in expenses, in-line with other CurrencyShares funds, and slightly cheaper than other emerging market currency funds.

The new funds are, with their expense ratios:

On Tuesday, XShares Advisors LLC announced a reorganization of its remaining four HealthShares ETFs. On September 19, XShares shuttered 15 of the 19 HealthShares funds that were then trading, leaving just four HealthShares ETFs: Cancer (NYSE: HHK), Diagnostics (NYSE: HHD), Drug Discovery Tools (NYSE: HHV), and European Drugs (NYSE: HRJ).

On Monday, September 8, Northern Trust Global Investments, the asset management arm of Northern Trust Corp. (NTRS), launched the NETS Tokyo Stock Exchange REIT Index Fund (JRE). The fund is "the first dedicated ETF to be based on the Tokyo Stock Exchange REIT Index" (press release). JRE trades on the NYSE Arca Exchange.

On Thursday, September 4 Barclays Capital launched the first Exchange Traded Note [ETN] to provide investors access to a basket of eight emerging Asian currencies. The Barclays Global Emerging Market Strategy [GEMS] Asia 8 Index ETN (AYT) trades on the NYSE-Arca and includes the following eight currencies: the Indonesian rupiah, the Indian rupee, the Philippine peso, the South Korean won, the Thai baht, the Malaysian ringgit, the Taiwanese dollar and the Chinese yuan.

On Wednesday September 3, Van Eck and Jim Rogers teamed up to launch the Market Vectors RVE Hard Assets Producers ETF (AMEX: HAP). The fund is being billed as "the first and only global hard assets ETF" (press release).

The expense ratio is listed at 0.65%, though a footnote on Claymore's website states:

Another thing that has the Apple faithful riled up this time around is the 2.0's price -- or lack thereof. Despite the fact Apple's latest iPhone has features a-plenty that the pre-3G version lacks, such as built in GPS, a new and aggressive pricing strategy will run consumers just $199 for 8 gigs of storage -- half the price of the model it replaces. Instead of retailing the phone at full price and taking a monthly cut from exclusive carrier AT&T (T), Apple will forgo its cut and AT&T will subsidize the phone's price in exchange for a two-year service contract. The reduced pricing means barring unforeseen disaster, Apple should blow past the 10 million phone sales estimate it set for itself in FY2008.

Pimco founder Bill Gross told the Financial Times Friday that he believes a U.S. recession recently got underway. “If I had to be bold I'd say we began a recession in December,” Gross said adding he believed the recession would last till April if the government reacted boldly to stimulate growth. If it didn’t, a longer downturn was possible. Gross believes the Fed should cut rates all the way down to 3% to combat what he sees as stagnant U.S. economic growth. He criticized current government inactivity in the face of growing financial risks saying, “What needs to be done is something fairly radical compared to Republican orthodoxy, which means spend money and absorb the deficit as opposed to pretending that you're fiscally conservative.” He also criticized the hedge fund industry calling it a “con” and likening it to “an unregulated bank.” Pimco, one of the world’s largest fixed income asset managers with $750 billion under management, stopped investing in mortgage-backed securities in 2006 and has outperformed the market during the second half of this year as a result.

U.S. futures were up sharply Friday morning, taking the baton from a strong close in Asia and solid intraday gains in Europe. The Nasdaq 100 was up 15.75 points to 2,114.25, the S&P 500 was higher by 11.6 points to 1,486.30 and the Dow gained 74 points to 13,424. European indexes were tracking broadly higher in mid-afternoon trading with gains of 1.3% to 1.4% across the board. Asian indexes were also sharply higher (full story) with the Hang Seng leading all gainers up 2.26%.

Dutch-based Royal Philips Electronics (PHG) announced Friday morning it had agreed to acquire Respironics Inc. (RESP) in an all-cash deal worth €3.6 billion ($5.17 billion). Royal Philips is best known for its home appliances and electronics products including LCD televisions and LED lights but also has a healthcare division; Respironics develops and produces medical devices for sleep and respiratory disorders. Under the merger agreement, Philips will acquire all Respironics shares for $66 a piece – a 24% premium to Thursday’s closing price of $53.11. Respironics had sales of $1.2 billion in its latest 12-month period. Respironics’ board unanimously approved the acquisition, under which the company will become the headquarters for Philips’ Home Healthcare Solutions group within Philips Healthcare. According to Philips CEO Gerard Kleisterlee, “Respironics is an excellent strategic fit and will significantly drive our growth in healthcare both in the hospital and in the home.” Kleisterlee also called the acquisition “another significant step in our continuing capital re-allocation process… we are well on track to deliver an efficient balance sheet before the end of 2009.” On Tuesday Philips announced a $7.2 billion share repurchase authorization (full story).

Research in Motion Ltd. (RIMM) reported F3Q08 results that topped Wall Street’s expectations and issued strong guidance Thursday after the closing bell, sending its shares higher by 12.1% in after-hours action. The large AH spike came on top of a 4.8% gain in composite trading Thursday in anticipation of earnings. Net income was $370.5 million, good for EPS of $0.65, versus net income of $175.2 million (EPS of $0.31) a year ago. Revenue rose 100% Y/Y to $1.67 billion on the addition of 1.65 million BlackBerry subscriber accounts and 3.9 million devices shipped. Analysts were expecting EPS of $0.62, on average, on revenue of $1.65 billion. Total BlackBerry subscriptions stood at approximately 12 million at the end of Q3 (period ended 12/1/07). Approximately 80% of RIMM’s revenue came from device sales. Despite concerns of a weak retail environment this holiday season, Co-CEO Jim Balsillie said his company was “pleased with the excellent consumer sales results achieved so far in the holiday buying season,” (Research In Motion F3Q08 (Qtr End 12/01/07) Earnings Call Transcript.

In an 8-K form filed with the SEC Thursday, SunTrust Banks, Inc. (STI) revealed it intends to purchase approximately $1.4 billion of securities issued by Structured Investment Vehicles [SIVs] from its STI Classic Prime Quality Money Market Fund and STI Classic Institutional Cash Management Money Market Fund. The purchases will lead to a writedown of $225 to $250 million before taxes in its current quarter (F4Q07). Through its latest actions, SunTrust will keep its money-market funds, traditionally considered among the safest investments, from ‘breaking the buck’ and falling below the $1-a-share promised to investors. ‘Breaking the buck’ can potentially cause investors to panic and withdraw their money en-masse from a given fund. Despite its expected writedown, management “expects to be profitable in the fourth quarter of 2007 and maintain its current dividend.” The company’s dividend yields 4.79% at current trading prices. According to SIV industry expert Peter Crane, publisher of Money Fund Intelligence, “SunTrust is being extremely conservative. They will recover almost all of it next year.” SunTrust shares fell 3.8%.