Next Up: Securities that Gauge Home Prices
June 17, 2008

SAN DIEGO (ETFguide.com) - Knock knock, who’s there? Securities that track home prices.

According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, MacroShares Housing Depositor, a subsidiary of MacroMarkets, plans exchange-traded securities that will participate in the upward and the inverse movement of U.S. home prices.

The MacroShares Major Metro Housing Up and Down securities will be based on the S&P/Case-Shiller Composite-10 Home Price Index, which is a nationally watched gauge of U.S. home prices.

The Composite-10 is a weighted measure of home price changes in the following metropolitan areas:

• Boston
• Chicago
• Denver
• Las Vegas
• Los Angeles
• Miami
• New York
• San Diego
• San Francisco
• Washington, DC

The MacroShares Major Metro Housing Up (UMM) will be long U.S. home prices, whereas the MacroShares Major Metro Housing Down (DMM) is designed to move in the opposite direction. These paired securities will have a ten-year term and will feature a 2x (200 percent) leverage factor. After their registration period has ended, the securities are expected to list on the NYSE Arca.

Sam Masucci, MacroMarkets President and CEO, noted, "We are very excited to apply our patented MacroShares technology to the U.S. residential real estate market. Housing has a capitalization value of approximately $22 trillion, making it one of the largest, unsecuritized asset classes in the world. MacroShares were originally conceived to provide access to large illiquid assets like housing. The capital markets need a way to access or hedge residential property through exchange-traded products, and MacroMarkets is leading the way."

MacroMarkets currently manages over $1.4 billion in assets and averages combined trading volume of 6.2 million shares in its MacroShares product line.

Robert Shiller, renowned economist and MacroMarkets' co-founder commented, "MacroShares Major Metro Housing enables investors the unique ability to gain exposure to the price movement of home prices, a commodity that greatly affects both institutions and individual investors." 

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