Sometimes investors want balanced and pure-play strategies for investing in exchange-traded funds, and for Rydex | SGI, that is giving its investment managment business a big push.
The company reported last week that its exchange-traded product platform, had reached almost $8.8 billion in assets. The investment management firm saw its assets under management jump from $6.2 billion since November 1, 2010 to $8.5 billion in early May.
Rydex’s suite of U.S. and non-U.S. equity ETFs, that are capitalization and style oriented like the S&P 500. That approach has helped drive asset growth by 44% in the four months from November through March.
The company has seven equal-weight ETFs, six of which have been launched since December. In its equal-weight strategy, Rydex curbs over concentration in any single stock or market by stocking them equally. It maintains that balance through systematic rebalancing. It also has nine domestic S&P 500 sector ETFs.
“We feel good about providing a better way to get exposure to the equity markets,” Rich Goldman, chief executive office of Rydex said in a phone interview.
The pure-play approach also seems to be winning attention, and cash, from investors. Rydex’s Currency Shares ETF is backed by the actual currency, whereas other alternative investment groups use swaps, forwards and other derivative instruments to achieve returns, Goldman said.
