ProductsMarch 12, 2010

J.P. Morgan Applies for Three New ETFs

J.P. Morgan Investment Management Inc. has filed applications with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to create and operate an actively-managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) and two index ETFs.

Reported by Rebecca Moore

The actively-managed ETF application said the fund will seek to achieve its objective of total return by investing in a broadly diversified portfolio of equity securities of the largest capitalized companies in the United States with varying risk characteristics. The fund’s portfolio will generally include approximately 300 securities of companies across various sectors with an emphasis on securities that J.P. Morgan considers undervalued or fairly valued.

A second application requests creation of an index-based fund and a self-indexing fund. The application said the initial index-based underlying index is a broad-based, total-return index comprised of municipal bonds which are investment-grade, fixed-rate bonds rated BBB or better with 1 to 12 years to maturity. The bonds in the initial index-based underlying index are traded in the U.S. markets and are market capitalization weighted.

The initial self-index underlying index tracks a broad measure of the performance of liquid securities in the floating rate investment grade corporate bond market. The minimum size criteria for bonds included in the initial self-index underlying index is an initial transaction issuance of $300 million. It is rebalanced monthly and includes bonds that are market capitalization weighted.