BetaPro Management Inc. said Friday that four of its ETFs will change thieir underlying indices on August 25.

Changes to the underlying indices, investment objectives, principal investment strategies, and names of these ETFs follow previously granted unitholder approval, BetaPro says.

HBP DJ-AIG Agricultural Grains Bear Plus ETF, and HBP DJ-AIG Agricultural Grains Bull Plus ETF (the Agricultural ETFs) will change their underlying indices so that each will track the daily performance of the S&P Agribusiness North America Index.

HBP S&P/TSX Global Mining Bear Plus ETF and HBP S&P/TSX Global Mining Bull Plus ETF (the Metals ETFs) will change their underlying indices so that each will track the daily performance of the S&P/TSX Global Base Metals Index.

By moving to new indices, BetaPro believes the Agricultural ETFs and Metals ETFs will provide investors with a pure play on their respective equity sectors, and may benefit from improved market liquidity because public trading of the equity issuers in the indices and the stock exchanges where they are listed will close each day at the same time. Tickers for the four ETFs will remain the same.

“BetaPro’s decision to move to Standard & Poor’s indices validates the relevance and importance of our investable benchmarks in this space,” said Jasmit Bhandal, Director, Business Development of Standard & Poors.

“These equity based indices will provide investors with more direct and precise access to the agribusiness and base metals markets,” says Howard Atkinson, president of BetaPro. “The coincidental trading hours of the index constituents and the ETFs themselves should enhance liquidity and improve ETF efficiencies.”

S&P Agribusiness North America Index is designed to provide liquid exposure to the upstream and downstream supply chain of the agribusiness sector. The index ncludes some of the largest publicly-traded agribusiness companies trading on the U.S and Canadian exchanges. To ensure investability, constituents must have a developed market listing and meet minimum market capitalization and liquidity requirements. The index has a daily market close that is at the same time (16:00 ET) as the daily net asset value calculation of the Agricultural ETFs, which is expected to be more useful to investors and foster greater liquidity.

S&P/TSX Global Base Metals Index is a subset of the S&P/TSX Global Mining Index. The index is designed to provide an investable index of global securities involved in the production or extraction of base metals, which excludes gold. To ensure investability, constituents must meet minimum market capitalization and liquidity requirements.

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