As a result of growing investor interest in commodities, BetaPro Management Inc. has launched four new commodity-based exchange traded funds, the company announced on Thursday.

The ETFs, which provide investors with exposure to futures prices of gold, silver, oil and natural gas, began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Thursday. They are designed to track the long-term performance of their underlying benchmarks, less applicable fees and expenses. Neither daily rebalancing nor leverage are used.

The new ETFs comprise BetaPro’s first “single” ETFs, seeking results that correspond to 100% of the daily performance of the underlying indexes, adding to the company’s portfolio of 32 leveraged and inverse ETFs.

The single ETFs provide a more suitable long-term investment for investors with a lower risk tolerance who are seeking exposure to the commodities. This contrasts with the leveraged ETFs, which are riskier, more focused on daily performance and which require periodic rebalancing by investors, according to Howard Atkinson, president of BetaPro Management Inc.

“These ETFs on the commodities are more suitable for longer-term buy and hold strategies,” said Atkinson. “It’s based on investor demand. Investors told us that they’d like to be able to get exposure to these popular commodities in something that they can hold for the longer term.”

But he warned that the single ETFs may produce more modest returns in the short run, compared to the company’s leveraged ETFs.

“You may miss out on some short-term movements with the Single ETFs that you would experience in the doubles,” Atkinson said.

The Horizons BetaPro COMEX Silver ETF (HUZ) is designed to provide investment results that correspond to 100% of the daily performance of the COMEX silver futures contract for the next delivery month.

Likewise, the Horizons BetaPro COMEX Gold ETF (HUG) seeks results that correspond to the daily performance of the COMEX gold futures contract for the next delivery month.

The Horizons BetaPro Winter-Term NYMEX Crude Oil ETF (HUC) is designed to provide results that correspond to the daily performance of the NYMEX light sweet crude oil futures contract for the next December delivery month. The current underlying contract for the ETF is oil for delivery in December 2010.

Similarly, the Horizons BetaPro Winter-Term NYMEX Natural Gas ETF (HUN) seeks results that correspond to the NYMEX light sweet crude oil futures contract for the next January delivery month, which is currently January 2010.

The NYMEX light sweet crude oil futures contract will be rolled each June to the next December futures contract and the NYMEX natural gas futures contract will be rolled each November to the next January futures contract.

Atkinson said basing the oil and gas ETFs on longer-dated underlying futures contracts, and rolling the contracts once a year rather than on a monthly basis, results in long-term performance that’s closer to the spot prices of the commodities.

“The way we get exposure to the commodity reduces the effect of the futures curve on the performance,” said Atkinson. “That’s the upshot of it.”

The roll methodology selected for the gold and silver ETFs has also historically proven to track the spot prices effectively, he added.

The ETFs are denominated in Canadian dollars, with any U.S. dollar gains or losses hedged back to the Canadian dollar.

IE