One of the best one day performers on Wednesday in exchange traded funds was FactorShares 2X: Oil Bull/S&P 500 Bear (NYSEArca: FOL), which rallied over 11%. The ETF tracks the spread between daily returns of crude oil and the S&P 500.
Crude oil gapped up on the open yesterday as futures eclipsed the $100 a barrel mark and oil related ETFs such as U.S. Oil Fund (NYSEArca: USO), PowerShares DB Oil (NYSEArca: DBO) and U.S. 12 Month U.S. Oil Fund (NYSEArca: USL) for instance traded at their highest levels since July. [Oil ETFs Rally]
The S&P 500 spent most of the early day in negative territory before rallying, and then plunged in the final hour, closing near the lows of the day and down 1.66%. With crude oil substantially on the day and the S&P 500 closing lower, FOL was indeed a winner and the 2 times daily leverage simply magnifies the returns from a daily standpoint. [Spread ETF]
This and other FactorShares products may appeal to those managers that are looking to make a “macro” type call across asset classes and believe that if one asset class rallies, it will lead to weakness in another and vice versa.