BNY Mellon building in New York. (Photo: AP)
BNY Mellon expanded its exchange-traded product relationship with United States Commodity Funds and completed the asset conversion onto BNY Mellon's ETF Servicing platform.
BNY Mellon serves as the funds' custodian, accountant, administrator and transfer agent, the firms said.
USCF specializes in commodity and alternative exchange-traded products, including the United States Oil Fund, LP, which trades on the NYSE Arca (USO, with a 0.79% net expense ratio), introduced in 2006.
"BNY Mellon is focused on delivering digital exchange-traded product solutions aimed at driving efficiencies across the ecosystem and working closely with our partners to develop long-term solutions for the industry," according to Jeff McCarthy, global ETF product head at BNY Mellon Asset Servicing.
AlphaCentric Municipal Opportunities Fund Launches
AlphaCentric Funds introduced its first municipal bond fund, one that integrates the expertise of two management teams to provide complimentary active strategies.
The "integrated dual strategy seeks to reduce market-value erosion when rates rise and generate alpha when rates fall, all while providing federally tax-exempt income," according to the firm.
The core portfolio relies on broad flexibility to invest in a large variety of federally tax-exempt bonds and other federally tax-free structured products, to "potentially provide a higher than average federally tax-exempt income stream" and capital appreciation, AlphaCentric said.The fund also uses a time-tested, trend following quant overlay designed to take advantage of changes in interest rates and credit spreads."
The strategy "provides investors the opportunity to maximize returns and limit exposure during periods of changing interest rates and credit cycles," said Mark Kamies, AlphaCentric co-founder.
The core portfolio strategy is being sub-advised by R&C Investment Advisors, while the quant overlay strategy is being sub-advised by Mount Lucas Management. The fund trades on the Nasdaq, with three classes of shares: Class I (MUNIX, with a net expense ratio of 1.33%); Class A (MUNAX, 1.58%) and Class C (MUNCX, 2.33%).
Direxion Reduces Leverage in 10 ETFs
Direxion reduced the exposure level in 10 of its leveraged ETFs.
The Direxion Daily Bull and 3X Shares ETFs now seek daily exposure, before fees and expenses, of +200% or -200% of each fund's respective benchmark index, down from +300% or -300%. Fund names were also changed, to reflect the shift from 3X Shares to 2X Shares.
The change affects country funds and commodity funds. Among the former are the Direxion Daily MSCI Brazil Bull 3X Shares (BRZU, with a net expense ratio of 1.29%) and Russia Bull 3X Shares (RUSL, 1.23%).
The commodity funds are Gold Miners Index Bull 3X Shares (NUGT, 1.17%), Gold Miners Index Bear 3X Shares (DUST, 1.07%), Junior Gold Miners Index Bull 3X Shares (JNUG, 1.12%), Junior Gold Miners Index Bear 3X Shares (JDST, 1.10%), Energy Bull 3X Shares (ERX, 1.06%), Energy Bear 3X Shares (ERY, 1.07%), S&P Oil & Gas Exp. & Prod. Bull 3X Shares (GUSH, 1.04%) and S&P Oil & Gas Exp. & Prod. Bear 3X Shares (DRIP, 1.07%).
