Speedread:
Canada
Desjardin lists Canada’s first market neutral ETF
Let's start with a fun fact: Quebec has the world's highest density of credit union membership. Now, with that in mind...
Desjardin, the $300B Quebecois credit union, is listing Canada’s first market neutral ETF. The Desjardins Alt Long/Short Equity Market Neutral ETF (DANC) will be actively managed and seek to provide positive returns regardless of how well (or badly) the market is doing.
To achieve this, the fund selects pairs of correlated assets typically in the same sector, and goes long on one thought likely to outperform, and short on one thought likely to underperform.
The targeted size of each individual pair is between 1% and 5% of the ETF’s NAV. International exposures are capped at 25% of NAV.
The fund will also undertake hedge fund style arbitrage trades, including special situation (i.e. corporate events), statistical (i.e. mean reversion) and capital structure arbitrage.
The fund charges 1% a year.
USA
Aware is aware of ultra-short duration
ETF newcomer the Minnesota-based Aware Asset Management is listing an actively managed ultra short duration ETF that tries to beat 3 month treasuries by 1% a year. The Aware Ultra-Short Duration Enhanced Income ETF (AWTM) will invest in US-dollar denominated debts with an overall effective duration of less than one year, the prospectus says.
The fund is more or less unconstrained in what it can invest it. It can invest in almost any kinds of debts of any credit rating – including non-agency backed MBS, convertibles, Rule 144A securities, and junk bonds. It can also position into cash, buy derivatives and short sell as the advisors see fit.
However, the fund will mostly invest in investment grade debts. It will strive to meet the insurance industry’s standards of investment grade credit, the prospectus says. We are unsure if this means it will target insurers.
AWTM is not a money market fund and does not seek to maintain a stable NAV of $1.00 per share.
The fund charges 0.23%.