ProShares Debuts 4 Leveraged International ETFs
June 9, 2009

SAN DIEGO (ETFguide.com) – Investor demand for ETFs that magnify their gains along with funds that move in the opposite direction of the market has been climbing over the past year.

To that end, ProShare Advisors has just launched four leveraged ETFs that attempt to deliver twice the daily returns of indexes covering developed foreign markets, emerging markets, China and Japan. Each of these long leveraged ETFs by ProShares already has corresponding short leveraged cousins. For example, the UltraShort MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: EEV) attempts to deliver double the inverse daily returns of emerging markets stocks.

"With some international markets posting strong year-to-date returns, investors are expressing interest in tools that allow them to gain magnified exposure to these markets," said Michael L. Sapir, ProFunds Group Chairman and CEO.

The new leveraged ProShares ETFs are the following:

--ProShares Ultra MSCI EAFE (NYSEArca: EFO)
--ProShares Ultra MSCI Emerging Markets (NYSEArca: EET)
--ProShares Ultra FTSE/Xinhua China 25 (NYSEArca: XPP)
--ProShares Ultra MSCI Japan (NYSEArca: EZJ)

Sapir continues, "These new ETFs complement our existing ETFs that are designed to provide short (or inverse) exposure to the same international indexes. Over the coming weeks, we plan to further expand our international offerings with ETFs covering more regions and specific countries."

According to the prospectus, the funds will charge annual expenses of 0.95%.

Each of these new ProShares ETFs seeks a 200% return of an index for a single day. Due to the compounding of daily returns, returns over periods other than one day will likely differ in amount and possibly direction from the target return for the same period. Direxion Shares, a competing provider of leveraged and short ETFs recently changed the name of its ETF lineup to reflect the word “daily” in each of the fund’s names. This was done to help investors better understand the fund’s investment objectives.

Due to differences in trading hours between U.S. and foreign markets, the values of the indexes are not computed as of the close of the U.S. securities markets. Daily correlation to the indexes will be measured by comparing the daily change in each fund’s net asset value per share to the performance of one or more U.S. exchange traded securities or instruments that reflect the values of the securities underlying the index as of the close of the U.S. securities markets.

The first series of leveraged and short ETFs in the U.S. market were originally introduced in mid-2006. According to ETFguide.com’s online database, there are now 75 inverse or short ETFs and 57 long leveraged ETFs.

Including the newly launched ETFs, ProShare Advisors, LLC now manages 80 ETFs with combined assets of $26.24 billion. The firm also manages 115 leveraged and short mutual funds known as the “ProFunds.”