When you think of Oklahoma, does your mind conjure images of farmland and dust as far as the eye can see, or large companies with great market capitalizations and potential for a winning exchange traded fund (ETF)?

University of Oklahoma graduate students did some research about their own state’s forthcoming ETF - a sign of the popularity of these investment tools and their importance.

Their study was of a hypothetical fund, similar to the one expected to launch this summer.

The "study fund" consisted of publicly traded Oklahoma companies with market caps greater than $100 million, reports Trading Markets. Each single stock was given no more than 5% of the fund’s total value. Their results showed that an ETF like this would have yielded explosive returns over the past decade, giving an annualized 12% return over the last 10 years. This beats the S&P with a 5.9% annualized return.

Bear in mind, of course, that the past is in no way indicative of the future, but the students found that a $10,000 investment in the fund in 1998 would have been worth more than $40,000 at the end of 2007, the study showed.

The Oklahoma Fund will trade under the ticker OOK, and will be listed
on the American Stock Exchange.  The fund is expected to launch next
month.