Direxion, an ETF provider specializing in inverse and leveraged securities, launched six index funds on Thursday, including four focused on the emerging markets that reflect the company’s aim to take advantage of increased investor interest in developing markets.

The Direxion Daily BRIC Bull 2x Shares and the Direxion Daily BRIC Bear 2x Shares focus on the so-called BRIC emerging market countries—Brazil, Russia, India and China, widely considered the cornerstones of any developing-market investment strategy. They are both based on the BNY Mellon BRIC Select ADR Index. A second pair of funds focused on India, the Direxion Daily India Bull 2x Shares and the Direxion Daily India Bear 2x Shares, use the Indus India Index as a benchmark.

Equities in many emerging market countries have more than doubled in the past year as investors focus on growth stories in BRIC countries—particularly in China and India, while fretting about high unemployment and indebtedness in developed countries. But investing in developing markets is not for the faint of heart, as sharp rallies have often in the past quickly turned into even sharper sell-offs.

“We see trading growth in the emerging space,” said Andy O’Rourke, director of marketing at Newton, Mass.-based Direxion. “There’s a lot of liquidity and volume in the nonleveraged space, and a lot of people look at that and say, ‘I’d like to try this with a leveraged product.’”

The ETFs focused on the emerging markets are the first from Direxion offering investors double the daily returns of the underlying index and their inverses, a move by the company to occupy an unfilled niche in the double-exposure ETF market, O’Rourke said. The firm is known for leveraged ETFs offering triple exposure, always in bull-and-bear pairs.

Chip ETFs Too

True to its reputation, Direxion also launched two triple-exposure ETFs on Thursday, these focused on the semiconductor sector of the computer industry. The Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3x Shares and the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bear 3x Shares use the PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index as their benchmark.

O’Rourke said Direxion was motivated to launch the leveraged and index products focused on the chip sector because the 21 individual stocks on the PHLX index all trade actively, as do existing ETFs focusing on semiconductors.