Vanguard One of Six Firms Planning to Offer Active ETFs

There’s been talk of actively managed exchange-traded funds for nearly 10 years now, and six companies have either submitted filings or requests for regulatory relief with the Securities and Exchange Commission to offer such funds, Pensions & Investments reports.

Vanguard and Bear Stearns have submitted the filings, while Firsthand Capital Management, Managed ETFs, Alpha Equity Research Advisors and XShares have submitted the relief papers.

Transparency has long been the stumbling block for ETFs, as investment advisors have feared that revealing holdings would enable front-running. Firsthand claims it can get around that problem by completing trades in a single day. That, said Firsthand Marketing Consultant Phil Mosakowski, won’t be a problem for liquid stocks. However, less liquid stocks could pose a problem, he admitted.

Vanguard believes it can get around the transparency issue by only providing a sampling of 50% to 75% of its bond holdings represented by similar securities with the same maturities, credit quality and yield.