The other main difference lies with the price: IBUY charges an expense ratio of 0.65 percent compared to ONLN’s fee of 0.58 percent.
Hat Trick
Hyman says it’s no coincidence that ONLN launched the same day as the start of Amazon Prime Day, an annual 36-hour shopping event with more than 1 million deals worldwide. He adds that his company introduced the ProShares Decline of the Retail Store ETF (EMTY) and ProShares Long Online/Short Stores ETF (CLIX) around the time of Black Friday last November.
EMTY seeks to profit from the decline of brick-and-mortar retailers through a short exposure to the Solactive-ProShares Bricks and Mortar Retail Store Index. That fund has nearly $21 million in assets and an expense ratio of 0.65 percent. EMTY is down roughly 19 percent since it launched, according to Yahoo Finance. Hyman attributes that to the recent share price gains made by traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.
CLIX combines a 100 percent long position in retailers that primarily sell online or through other non-store channels with a 50 percent short position in retailers principally relying on physical stores. That fund has $65 million in AUM and an expense ratio of 0.65 percent. And it has fared much better to-date than EMTY with a return of about 26 percent during its brief life.
With ONLN, ProShares is making an all-in, long-only bet on the future of online retail.
“We’re excited to offer folks the long-only [retail] opportunity,” Hyman says regarding the debut of ONLN. “Now we have all three pieces.”