• Grail introduces first qualitatively managed ETF
• WisdomTree rolls out emerging markets currency fund
• SSgA launches mortgage finance ETF

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NEW LISTINGS

Grail Launches Active ETF 

Grail Advisors launched its first exchange-traded fund on May4, the first to use a team of active managers implementing traditional qualitative stock-picking processes.

The Grail American Beacon Large Cap Value ETF (NYSEArca:GVT) is managed by a trio of veteran mutual fund and institutional subadvisers.Those are: Brandywine Global Investment, Hotchkis and Wiley Capital Management,and Metropolitan West Capital Management.

Combined, the new ETF's aim is to outperform the Russell1000 Index. However, it won't track any specific benchmark when selecting its names.

The fund will publish its full portfolio on a daily basis,offering complete transparency into the fund holdings. At launch, the fund held152 stocks, with the largest single positions in: Chevron (1.52%); JPMorganChase (1.50%); ConocoPhillips (1.46%); Philip Morris (1.43%) and AT&T(1.42%).

GVT is not the first actively managed stock ETF—Invesco PowerShares offers a trio of actively managed funds. The PowerShares products,however, use quantitative processes to select their portfolios rather than qualitative. 

GVT charges 0.79% in annual expenses.

Its prospectus is available here.

WisdomTree Rolls Out Emerging Currency ETF

WisdomTree added another exchange-traded fund to its lineupof actively managed currency funds on May 6.

The WisdomTree Dreyfus Emerging Currency Fund (NYSEArca: CEW) provides exposure to a wide range of emerging market currencies. Those include: the Brazilian real, Chinese yuan, Chilean peso, Indian rupee, Israeli shekel, Mexican peso, Polish zloty, South African rand, South Korean won,Taiwanese dollar and Turkish new lira.

It charges an expense ratio of 0.55%.

According to information provided by WisdomTree, the fund equal-weights as many as 12 different currencies, selected according toliquidity and economic as well as regional diversification.

Of the regions that the currencies fall into—Latin America,Europe, Asia as well as the Middle East and Africa—none can represent more than45% of the fund upon rebalancing.

As with all its currency funds, WisdomTree emphasizes that the actively managed CEW is not a money market fund. But it invests primarily inU.S. money market securities and local currency forward contracts; the portfolio's average maturity is 90 days or less.

You can read the prospectus for CEW here and a statement of additional information here.

New SPDR Covers Mortgage Finance Stocks

At the end of April, anticipating a return in U.S. mortgagemarkets, State Street Global Advisors launched an ETF focusing on companies involved in that corner of the market.

The SPDR KBW Mortgage Finance ETF (NYSEArca: KME) holds banks dominated with mortgage loans on their books as well as related service providers. The biggest of those names in the fund's index heading into the launch were Hudson City Bancorp, New York Community Bancorp and NewAllianceBancshares.

But the new ETF also includes a healthy dose of titleinsurers and claims managers, as well as home builders.

The ETF, which comes with an expense ratio of 0.35%, uses a benchmark created by investment banker and asset manager Keefe, Bruyette &Woods and held 24 securities at its launch. The new ETF joins four other SPDRs using KBW indexes to slice financials into different subsectors.

There are several MBS-focused ETFs on the market, but theyall hold the fixed-income securities rather than the stocks of mortgage lenders and related services firms.

You can read the prospectus for KME here.

NEW FILINGS

SSgA Files For Preferred Stock Fund

State Street Global Advisors has filed to launch an exchange-traded fund that would invest in nonconvertible preferred stocks.

It would trade on the NYSE Arca and seek to replicate the Wells Fargo Hybrid and Preferred Securities Aggregate Index. No cost information was supplied in the filing.

Preferred securities have been an attractive area for more-income-minded investors lately. The stocks usually pay a fixed rate of distribution in addition to any potential gains an investor can receive from shares' price movements. Preferred shareholders also gain preferential treatment over common stock in bankruptcy proceedings or other legal disputes over distributions.

The new SSgA ETF would compete head-to-head against two others already on the market. Those are the PowerShares Preferred Portfolio(NYSEArca: PGX) and the iShares S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index Fund(NYSEArca: PFF).

The filing is available here.

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