Goldman Sachs has filed for a new suite of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), most of them alternative, in a move to step up its coverage of the fast-growing US ETF market which is valued at nearly $2 trillion.
The US bank has drafted plans for 11 new passively-managed ETFs, including six ‘ActiveBeta’ structures and five hedge fund-themed funds, according to the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC),.
The new funds will track a number of the bank’s proprietary indices including international (Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta International Equity Index), emerging markets (Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta Emerging Markets Equity index), Europe (Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta Europe Equity index) and Japan equity (Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta Japan Equity index) underlyings, as well as US large-cap (Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta US Large Cap Equity index) and small-cap stocks (Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta US Small Cap Equity index).
The hedge fund-themed ETFs (Goldman Sachs Equity Long Short Hedge Fund Tracker ETF, Goldman Sachs Event Driven Hedge Fund Tracker ETF, Goldman Sachs Macro Hedge Fund Tracker ETF, Goldman Sachs Multi-Strategy Hedge Fund Tracker ETF and Goldman Sachs Relative Value Hedge Fund Tracker ETF) include strategies focusing on event-driven and equity long-short strategies and are aimed at replicating the returns of hedge funds using those strategies.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management is the index provider and the ETFs are to be listed on the NYSE Arca exchange although the filling does not include prices.
Goldman filed for permission to launch actively-managed exchange-traded funds in September, as well as to self-index, which allows it to launch funds based on its own proprietary indexes. The SEC approved the proposal to use of the bank’s own indices but rejected an earlier filling by NYSE Arca to list and trade actively-managed ETFs that do not disclose their holding positions on a daily basis.
The US regulator also approved a proposal relating to use of derivative instruments by AdvisorShares Global Echo ETF, which effectively lifted the embargo on the use of synthetic exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the US market.
Goldman has listed a new security option linked to the Eurostoxx Low Risk Weighted 50 as an underlying, making it the first provider to use this underlying in the US market.
Goldman did not return requests for comment.
Click here to see the SEC filing.
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