First ever housing ETF to launch

[Dave Kennedy]

I was just watching CNBC and they talked about a highly anticipated launch from MacroShares.

There is an up fund and a down fund and you are essentially betting for or against the housing market. The fund doesn't invest in RE, it appreciates depending on the actual price of homes reported by Case Shiller.

UMM - Will return 3 times the bench market return, you are betting on it going up. So if home prices on the index rise by 20% on the year...your ETF will return 60% for the year.

DMM - Will return 3 times the bench market return, you are betting on it going down. Its the flip side of UMM.

The benchmark they will be using to determine fund performance is the S&P Composite 10, provided by Case Shiller. This tracks the top 10 markets in the US and follows home prices.

They aren't sure when the launch date is just yet but they anticipate it will be released in a few months.

Seems a little shady for an ETF. Potential conflict of interest there with Case Shiller...imo. Seems like you could ride out DMM for another 12-18 months and then reevaluate and hop into UMM for a long term investment. It's definitely something I'll keep on the radar.

My Agriculture and Oil ETF's killed it for a year and I got out this summer (on gut and by luck) and I am glad I did. I think I sold my Oil ETF when Oil was around 130/barrel. It was litterally all down hill from there for DBO.