MORE new PROSHARE ETFS

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S2007S

there releasing more nearly every single month. There only going to get better too.

PRESS RELEASE

SmallCap ProShares - Bell Ringing at the AMEX

New York, NY, February 22, 2007—ProShares, together with the American Stock Exchange® (Amex®), today announced the addition of 12 exchange traded funds (ETFs) to the ProShares lineup. The new ProShares, benchmarked to six Russell style indexes, are the first ETFs or mutual funds designed to provide short or magnified exposure to growth and value indexes—with large-, mid- and small- cap versions of each.

"Investing in a specific style mutual fund or ETF has long been an easy way to tilt a portfolio's exposure toward growth or value," said Michael Sapir, CEO of ProShare Advisors LLC, part of ProFunds Group. "The new ProShares are a unique—and we think useful—addition to the style fund arsenal. Now, by simply buying an ETF, fund investors can seek to hedge gains in other style investments with short exposure, or seek to increase the buying power of their investment dollar with magnified exposure."

The new "style" funds bring ProShares' total offering to 52 ETFs, covering a wide range of indexes—from broad market choices to specific sectors. ProShares are the first and only ETFs designed to provide short or magnified exposure to indexes. In the eight months since the initial launch of ProShares, the family has grown to more than $3 billion in assets.

"Since the beginning of the year we have more than quadrupled the size of the ProShares lineup—we now offer the third-largest lineup of ETFs in the country," Sapir added. "Investors have been asking us to add more choices because they want to be able to get ProShares’ built-in short or magnified exposure to more of the indexes they use."

The newest ProShares provide short and magnified exposure to each of six benchmark Russell indexes. The UltraShort version of each is designed to provide twice the inverse of the daily performance of the applicable index (before fees and expenses), and the Ultra version is designed to double the daily performance of the applicable index (before fees and expenses).
Ultra Style ProShares Names of ProShares Dow Jones
U.S. Sector Index Daily Objective* Ticker Symbol (NAV)
Ultra Russell1000 Value Russell 1000®
Double

UVG
Ultra Russell1000 Growth Russell 1000® Growth
Double

UKF
Ultra Russell MidCap Value Russell MidCap® Value
Double

UVU
Ultra Russell MidCap Growth Russell MidCap® Growth
Double

UKW
Ultra Russell2000 Value Russell 2000® Value
Double

UVT
Ultra Russell2000 Growth Russell 2000® Growth
Double

UKK

UltraShort Style ProShares Names of ProShares Dow Jones
U.S. Sector Index Daily Objective* Ticker Symbol (NAV)
UltraShort Russell1000 Value Russell 1000® Value
Double the inverse

SJF
UltraShort Russell1000 Growth Russell 1000® Growth
Double the inverse

SFK
UltraShort Russell MidCap Value Russell MidCap® Value
Double the inverse

SJL
UltraShort Russell MidCap Growth Russell MidCap® Growth
Double the inverse

SDK
UltraShort Russell2000 Value Russell 2000® Value
Double the inverse

SJH
UltraShort Russell2000 Growth Russell 2000® Growth
Double the inverse

SKK

*Before fees and expenses

"ProShares continues to be active in bringing new and innovative products to the marketplace. The Amex is proud to be partnering with ProShares and listing its 52nd ETF at the Exchange," said Cliff Weber, senior vice president, Amex ETF Marketplace.

"By using Russell's style indexes for these new ETF products, ProShares relies on the same underlying index methodology that produced the leading benchmarks for institutional investors," said Rolf Agather, director of business development for Russell indexes. "These products provide investors with some important new tools to more effectively use growth and value stocks in their investment strategies. We wish ProShares a world of success with them."
 
What’s Next?

The wave of leveraged and inverse-leveraged ETFs, however, will continue. ProShares already has more than 20 additional funds in registration, including a full suite of S&P style funds and funds tied to the Biotech and Precious Metals business

The obvious gap in the line-up is international funds, which would likely be a major hit with volatility seeking investors.

“We are working on it … diligently,” said Seale, of the overseas products. “They were not in the initial exemptive application with the Securities and Exchange Commission, so we will have to amend that application to include them. But it is something we are extremely interested in, and something that our shareholders continue to be interested in. We are working on it.”

Already, ProShares has over $3 billion in assets for its funds, which trade in incredible volumes. The ProShares UltraShort QQQ (AMEX: QID), the most popular fund, with over $1.1 billion in assets, boast an average daily trading volume of over 4.3 million shares, according to Yahoo! Finance. That’s a fair cry from the 110 million shares of the Nasdaq-100 Tracking Stock (NDAQ: QQQQ), but compared to most newly listed ETFs, which struggle to rise above the 100,000 share mark, 4.3 million is impressive
 
A while back a colleague and I put up a web site on the Index Roll, a leveraged index investing technique using LEAPs, and wrote an article for Seeking Alpha called "Indexing on Steroids" that was carried by Yahoo Finance and many other sites.

We just wrote another article you may be interested in: "Leveraged ETFs: A Value Destruction Trap?" It shows the perils of a fund trying to maintain constant leverage during a bear market, which is what the Ryder and ProShares ETFs do. In order to maintain their leverage ratio, these funds buy lots of shares during a bull market, and then sell them all during a downturn, with devastating results which they just can't recover from.

Here's the URL:

http://etf.seekingalpha.com/article/31195
 
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