Skip to main content
fund watch

Copper tiles

Copper may not have the cachet of gold, but BetaPro Management Inc. has just rolled out new exchanged traded funds (ETFs) that aim to capture the potential upside - or downside - of this industrial metal.

BetaPro, a unit of Jovian Capital Corp. , began listing its leveraged bull and bear copper ETFs on Wednesday. The ETFs - a first in North America - offer exposure to the daily price performance of copper futures contracts.

The HBP COMEX Copper Bull Plus ETF seeks to give two times (200 per cent) the daily performance of the COMEX (R) copper futures contract for a subsequent delivery month. The HBP COMEX Copper Bear Plus ETF aims to correspond with two times (200 per cent) the opposite daily performance of the COMEX(R) copper futures contract for a subsequent delivery month.

The copper ETFs are denominated in Canadian dollars with any U.S. gains or losses from the copper funds being hedged back to the Canadian dollar, the company said.

"Investment interest in copper as an asset class has grown rapidly over the last decade as investors become more familiar with its crucial role in global electronics manufacturing and urban development," said Howard Atkinson, president of BetaPro. "The huge increase in global electronics manufacturing and industrialization in emerging markets has dramatically increased the use of copper worldwide."

While BetaPro is now wading into the copper arena with its latest offering, Scotia Capital's proposed closed-end fund aimed at giving investors direct ownership of copper never did get off the ground. While it filed paperwork in the spring to revive its initial public offering of the ScotiaMocatta Physical Copper Fund, it was pulled in late April. The original prospectus was filed in July, 2009.

Interact with The Globe