IndexIQ Plans To Launch 15 More Hedge Fund ETFs

Date: Thursday, April 16, 2009
Author: Indexuniverse.com

Are you ready for some more hot sauce on your exchange-traded funds smorgasbord?

IndexIQ, which recently introduced the first ETF to replicate hedge funds, has filed to launch 15 more. Each will effectively splice and dice hedging strategies into different categories.  

Assuming the Securities and Exchange Commission finds no special quirks to halt a launch, the new ETFs will be the:

• IQ CPI Inflation Tracker ETF    

• IQ Hedge Equal Weight Multi-Strategy Tracker ETF

• IQ Hedge Asset Weight Multi-Strategy Tracker ETF

• IQ Hedge Inverse Multi-Strategy Tracker ETF  

• IQ Hedge Distressed Tracker ETF    

• IQ Hedge Convertible Arbitrage Tracker ETF  

• IQ Hedge Dedicated Short Bias Tracker ETF  

• IQ Hedge Managed Futures Tracker ETF    

• IQ Hedge Market Directional Tracker ETF    

• IQ Hedge Absolute Return Tracker ETF    

• IQ Hedge Relative Value Tracker ETF    

• IQ ARB Merger Arbitrage ETF    

• IQ ARB Global Natural Resources ETF    

• IQ ARB Global Real Estate ETF    

• IQ ARB Global Infrastructure ETF

All will follow underlying indexes created by IndexIQ. Most will consist of fund of funds structures, combining different subindexes and use ETFs to replicate the various strategies. It's a system that IndexIQ is implementing with the IQ Hedge Multi-Strategy Tracker ETF (NYSEArca: QAI).

That ETF launched in late March with an expense ratio of 0.75%. (See related story here.) The firm's most recent filing doesn't list expense ratios for the new batch.  

But it does include some interesting tidbits. For example, the so-called CPI Inflation Tracker ETF would try to match the returns of the Consumer Price Index, but not on a monthly basis. Instead, its index will track rolling 12-month returns of the CPI.

The fund, which will be rebalanced monthly, will try to mimic the CPI's inflation exposure by investing in broad asset classes, including U.S. large caps; foreign stocks; U.S. government fixed income of all maturities; foreign sovereign debt; foreign currencies and commodities.

The filing actually has detailed explanations of each portfolio's objectives and methodologies. You can read more about each here.