New ETFs Bet Against the Shopping Mall by Shorting Traditional Retail Stores
- ProShare Advisors to sell 3 funds targeting retail industry
- Speculation on mall failures has grown increasingly crowded
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Wagering on the demise of the American mall is about to get a whole lot easier using exchange-traded funds.
A trio of new ETFs proposed by ProShare Advisors LLC take positions against retailers that are most likely to suffer from the dominance of internet shopping, “bricks and mortar” companies that rely on a physical store to sell their wares, regulatory filings show. Two of the funds will use leverage to boost the returns on their bets against the industry, while the other will short traditional retailers and go long firms that stand to benefit most from the boom in electronic commerce, according to the documents.