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NEW LISTINGS

Van Eck Launches ETF Tracking Commodities Producers

Van Eck Global and commodities guru Jim Rogers have teamed up to launch a new broad-based commodity equities exchange-traded fund, the Market Vectors - RVE Hard Assets Producers ETF (AMEX: HAP), which could significantly reshape the natural resource investing landscape. The fund launched on September 3 and is being billed as the first global, pure-play, hard assets ETF. Hard assets refers to any company producing “stuff,” such as oil drillers, gold miners, copper companies, alternative energy plays and more.

The traditional means of investing in the commodities market is to buy commodity futures or a commodity futures-based fund. That gives investors pure-play exposure to commodities and has become an extremely popular strategy in the ETF space. Van Eck said there is more than $30 billion invested in funds linked to futures-based commodity indexes.

However, investors can also gain exposure to commodities by purchasing shares of commodity-producing stocks. Commodity stocks track closer to traditional equities than commodity futures, but come with the additional risk and benefits of owning equities—i.e., companies can either make good or bad corporate decisions, either adding or subtracting value long term.

The idea isn’t new: Van Eck says there are $16 billion invested in index funds linked to commodity stocks. But the company says those funds have two major flaws: They focus solely on North American companies, and they dramatically overweight the Energy space.

The Van Eck Hard Assets Producers Fund covers 321 companies in 40 countries and across six sectors. Forty-four percent of the fund is invested in stocks outside of the U.S. and Canada, and 60% is invested in non-energy companies.

The fund has an expense ratio of 65 basis points.

Read the prospectus for HAP here.

Capturing Japanese REITs In A NET
The Northern Trust exchange-traded funds family marketed as NETS has brought the industry's first Japanese real estate investment trust fund to market with the launch of the NETS Tokyo Stock Exchange REIT Index Fund (NYSEArca: JRE) on September 8.

The Japanese REIT market represents 10% of all global real estate investment opportunities, according to Northern Trust.

The Japanese real estate market has been hard hit lately, but many in the market feel it may have hit rock bottom.

Recent data from Real Capital Analytics shows positive trends in Japanese real estate in terms of transaction levels compared with other global markets. Transactions in Japan have grown 11% in the first half of 2008, and Tokyo topped the list of office property sales. Japan as a country was behind only the U.S. in the office market with $12.6 billion in transactions.

Real Capital Analytics noted that Asia now accounts for a third of the global property acquisitions, doubling its market share in one year. Transactions in Japan grew 11 percent for the first half of 2008 compared with 2007, the report noted. Approximately $2.6 billion was sold in apartment properties by mid-year, 15% higher than the same period in 2007, and again placing Japan second behind the U.S., according to the Real Capital Analytics report.

JRE charges an expense ratio of 0.47%.

Read the prospectus for JRE here.

Barclays Launches Emerging Asia Currencies ETN

The first means for individual investors to easily gain access to emerging Asian currencies debuted on September 4.

The Barclays GEMS Asia 8 ETN (NYSEArca: AYT), like other currency ETNs from Barclays, provides investors monthly interest payments in addition to its underlying index’s rate of return. The Barclays GEMS Index ETN (AMEX: JEM) and the Barclays Asian and Gulf Currency Revaluation ETN (NYSEArca: PGD) also both pay dividends.

Normally, currency ETNs will combine the price and interest earnings into calculating the underlying benchmark’s value. Interest payments for AYT will be treated as ordinary income, meaning investors won't get any tax breaks if held outside of tax-deferred accounts.

AYT holds a basket of currencies through exposure to short-term notes and securities in local markets. It provides exposure to 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. Like Barclays' JEM and PGD, the new ETN's index is equal-weighted.

AYT's yearly fees are expected to wind up around 0.89% as a percentage of assets.

You can read the prospectus and associated supplements for AYT here.

NEW FILINGS

There were no new filings last for the covered period.

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