It has been some time since we have seen nibbling in the U.S. Dollar via in UUP (PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish, Expense Ratio 0.50%) but during Monday’s session we saw some activity in the March 22 calls. UUP meanwhile is trading at its lowest levels since the end of 2011, although the fund has still managed to net pull in assets YTD (+$94 million).
On the flipside, leading Euro tracker FXE (CurrencyShares Euro, Expense Ratio 0.40%) despite its strong performance against the U.S. Dollar, particularly in the past month or so, has not attracted new assets year to date ($-7 million).
Given the recent options activity in UUP and relative price levels of the Dollar, it makes sense to pay attention to UUPT (PowerShares DB 3X Long U.S. Dollar Index Futures ETN, Expense Ratio 0.95%), which as its name suggests, offers three times daily leveraged exposure to the long side of the U.S. Dollar. Dollar bears who will tend to sell the periodic rallies in the Dollar will likely look to both UDN (PowerShares DB U.S. Dollar Index Bearish, Expense Ratio 0.50%) and UDNT (PowerShares DB 3X Short U.S. Dollar Index Futures ETN, Expense Ratio 0.95%).
The largest fund in the U.S. Dollar space is hands down UUP, which has $781 million currently in assets under management, and UDN ($64 million), UUPT ($3.5 million) and UDNT ($1.7 million) still remain rather small in comparison. Those whom are trading the Dollar/Euro spread via currency futures or options currently may also want to look at newer ETF devices that track the Euro in tandem to what they may be looking at in terms of U.S. Dollar trackers as well, and relevant ETPs here include EUO (ProShares UltraShort Euro, Expense Ratio 0.95%), and DRR (Market Vectors Double Short Euro ETN, Expense Ratio 0.65%), EUFX
(ProShares Short Euro, Expense Ratio 0.95%) to name a few.