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Portfolio > Portfolio Construction

ProShares Launches ‘Decline of the Retail Store’ ETF: Portfolio Products

By Emily Zulz

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ProShares launched an exchange-traded fund specifically designed to benefit from the decline of bricks and mortar retailers.

The ProShares Decline of the Retail Store ETF (NYSE Arca: EMTY) is the first ETF specifically designed to benefit from the decline of bricks and mortar retailers, according to ProShares.

“Investors are witnessing signs of trouble in the malls and falling stock prices in the markets,” said Michael L. Sapir, cofounder and CEO of ProShare Advisors, LLC, the advisor to ProShares, in a statement. “For the first time, investors can turn these trends into a potential investment opportunity through an ETF.”

(Related: Passive Investing a ‘Great Way to Free Up Time’: Schwab’s Clark)

EMTY is designed to allow investors to benefit from the potential on-going erosion of value of retailers that rely principally on in-store sales. It provides consistent, daily short exposure (-1x) to the new Solactive-ProShares Bricks and Mortar Retail Store Index. The ETF is designed to deliver the inverse (opposite) of the daily performance of the index. 

The Solactive-ProShares Bricks and Mortar Retail Store Index is a comprehensive, public index to be composed exclusively of traditional retailers and is intended to become the  standard for measuring their performance. It is equally weighted and currently has 56 constituent companies that include department stores, supermarkets and sellers of apparel, consumer electronics and home improvement items. Current constituents include retailers such as Barnes & Noble, The Gap, Macy’s, Kroger and Best Buy.

Also launching today is ProShares Long Online/Short Stores ETF (NYSE Arca: CLIX).

CLIX aims to provide investors opportunities arising from both the potential growth of online companies and the decline of bricks and mortar retailers. It tracks the new ProShares Long Online/Short Stores Index which combines a 100% long portfolio of on-line and non-traditional retailers with a 50% short position in bricks and mortar retailers.

InvestCloud Launches Solutions to Democratize Digital and Deliver Mass Automation 

FinTech firm InvestCloud released two new lines of financial apps to run on its digital platform: InvestCloud Gray and InvestCloud Neon.

InvestCloud Gray digitizes client interactions. It enables wealth managers to leverage InvestCloud’s experience to deliver digital client portals, automated and interactive client reporting and client management capabilities far more cost effectively.

In turn, clients are granted access to an online portal featuring all relevant account information, updated in real-time. The platform also provides mobility apps, allowing clients and advisors to access information, and communicate at any time, from any place and through any device.

InvestCloud Neon enables wealth managers and financial institutions to automate trading, accounting and middle-office workflows.

InvestCloud Neon supports the real-time processing of equities, bonds and funds via a completely modular set of front-, middle- and back-office apps, which aims to help businesses increase automation and reduce costs. By digitizing these functions, Neon relieves the workload on investment operations, allowing managers and advisors to focus on serving client needs. It is also multi-lingual and multi-currency, allowing it to be applied across different geographies.

Riskalyze Deepens Integration With Schwab OpenView Gateway

Riskalyze announced that both the Riskalyze and Autopilot platforms will be added to the Schwab OpenView Gateway, further expanding its integration with the custodian allowing advisors to seamlessly sync and automate accounts.  

Schwab OpenView Gateway provides a flexible, open-architecture platform that enables integrations between the firm’s custody systems and participating technology providers. As part of the integration with Riskalyze and Autopilot, advisors will be able to connect their account to Schwab OpenView Gateway, allowing them to link clients between both platforms and will also update client data daily, including client profiles, accounts, balances, positions and more. In addition, Riskalyze will be able to automate trade delivery for seamless execution with Autopilot’s One-Click Fiduciary technology.

The integration and features will be available to Schwab and Riskalyze advisors in the first quarter of 2018.

eMoney Advisor Announces Three New Upcoming Integrations

eMoney Advisor also announced plans to add an integration later this year with Schwab OpenView Gateway. eMoney also announced new integrations with portfolio rebalancing and performance reporting software provider Envestnet | Tamarac and cloud content management leader Box, which are scheduled to go live in 2018.

Once all three are implemented, a total of 20 integrations will be available on eMoney’s financial planning platform, enabling its nearly 50,000 users to seamlessly transition between sites, securely access shared data and streamline their planning processes.

Scheduled for a fourth quarter 2017 launch, eMoney’s integration with Schwab OpenView Gateway will provide a seamless navigation to Schwab Advisor Center from the eMoney platform. 

In Q1 next year, eMoney users can expect integrations with Envestnet | Tamarac, which will allow investors and their advisors benefit from bi-directional, single sign-on access between both the advisor and client portals of eMoney and Tamarac.

eMoney users can also expect the Box integration in the first quarter as well, which will help them comply with FINRA and SEC rules as it meets the criteria required in SEC ruling 17a-4 (also known as WORM – Write Once, Read Many) for broker/dealers.

New ETF Provides 300% Exposure to Dynamic Pharmaceutical Intellidex Index

Direxion launched the Direxion Daily Pharmaceutical Bull 3X Shares (PILL).

The fund seeks to achieve 300% of the daily performance of the Dynamic Pharmaceutical Intellidex Index. The index provides exposure to 30 U.S pharmaceutical companies principally engaged in the research, development, manufacture, sale or distribution of pharmaceuticals and drugs of all types.

The next expense ratio is 1.12%. 

Like all leveraged ETFs, this Direxion product is intended only for investors with an in-depth understanding of the risks associated with seeking leveraged investment results, and who plan to actively monitor and manage their positions. There is no guarantee that this fund will meet its objective.

New York Life Investments Launches Emerging Markets Equity Fund 

New York Life Investments launched the MainStay Candriam Emerging Markets Equity Fund.

The fund will seek long-term growth through investments in equity securities of attractively-valued companies with strong sustainable growth and profitability, and that are located or economically tied to emerging markets.

The fund will be managed by Candriam Investors Group, a leading Pan-European asset manager and a subsidiary of New York Life Investments. Candriam will manage the fund in a substantially similar manner to Candriam’s Emerging Markets Equity strategy in Europe.  

Allianz Life Launches Index Precision Strategy 

Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America launched the new Index Precision Strategy available on the Allianz Index Advantage Variable Annuity suite of index variable annuities (IVAs).

The Index Precision Strategy offers a level of principal protection while maintaining the opportunity for predictable upside potential.

As one of multiple index strategies available on Allianz IVA products, the Index Precision Strategy provides the option to allocate to four corresponding equity indexes.

With this strategy, as long as the annual change in index value is zero or positive, the client will receive the entire annual credit of the Precision Rate. The Precision Rate is declared monthly for newly issued contracts, and is subject to change annually. The Index Precision Strategy also offers a 10% buffer to provide a level of protection from the first 10% of negative index returns annually. Any loss in excess of 10% reduces the contract value.

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