New ProFunds let investors play U.S. dollar .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Tuesday, February 22, 2005 2:33:23 PM
BOSTON (AFX) -- Individual investors seeking to profit directly from the sagging U.S. dollar have had to use currency future markets or purchase foreign currencies, but an asset manager that caters to active traders is attempting to make it easier to play the greenback via mutual funds
Bethesda, Md.-based ProFunds Advisors will launch two new funds on Tuesday designed to take advantage of either a strengthening or weakening U.S. dollar. The Rising U.S. Dollar ProFund, which will have the ticker "RDPIX," will provide 100 percent exposure to the U.S. Dollar Index on a daily basis, while the Falling U.S. Dollar ProFund with the ticker "FDPIX" gives 100 percent of the inverse of the index. "While mutual fund investors can try to take advantage of the dollar's movements through foreign stock or bond funds, those traditional funds are designed to be significantly affected by variables other than the movement of the dollar," said Michael Sapir, chief executive of ProFunds Advisors
The U.S. Dollar Index, which is calculated by the New York Board of Trade, tracks the value of the dollar against a basket of six major world currencies: the euro, the Japanese yen, the British pound, the Canadian dollar, the Swedish krona and the Swiss franc
The funds should appeal to active traders because there are no limits on the number of exchanges between any ProFunds
Both funds will have an expense ratio of 1.45 percent, which includes a 0.75 percent so-called "12b-1" fee to cover distribution and marketing and expenses, according to a prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
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