Ossiam releases leveraged US Steepener ETF with Solactive index
At the moment, the US Treasury yield curve sits in the focus of investors. The reason the curve receives such attention lies in its slope, which is as flat as it was way back in 2007. To grant investors the opportunity to benefit from a potential steepening of the US Treasury yield curve, French Asset Manager Ossiam issued its Ossiam US Steepener UCITS ETF on August 19th at Deutsche Börse Xetra, tracking the Solactive US Treasury Yield Curve Steepener 2-5 vs 10-30 Index.
The strategy of the Solactive US Treasury Yield Curve Steepener 2-5 vs 10-30 Index consists of a long/short strategy, which places a long position in two-year and five-year US Treasury bond futures and a short position in ten-year and thirty-year US Treasury bond futures. To harvest further performance from the movement of the US Treasury yield curve, Solactive equips the index with a multiplier leveraging on both directions the action of the yield curve by a factor of ten.
“This is a timely launch of this ETF, considering the yield curve is at its flattest for over a decade. Depending on how the Fed’s interest rate decision plays out compared to market expectations, optimistic investors could generate returns for their fixed income portfolio and place strategic positions”, says Timo Pfeiffer, Head of Research at Solactive. “The ETF provides investors with another tool to play the yield curve and position themselves for a steepening curve play.”
Already earlier this month, Solactive supplied the underlying for another ETF launch concerning the US Treasury bond futures. With the Lyxor US Curve Steepening 2-10 ETF, French asset manager Lyxor issued the first US Treasury Steepener ETF in Europe. The fund tracks the performance of the Solactive USD Daily (x7) Steepener 2-10 Index, which on the one hand holds a long position in two-year US Treasury bond futures while on the other hand places a short position in ten-year US Treasury ultra-bond futures. Furthermore, the index’ multiplier aims for every increase or decrease of a basis point to mirror the performance with approximately a seven points movement.
Lyxor US Curve Steepening 2-10 ETF started trading on the London Stock Exchange on August 1st.