NEW YORK, June 21, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today announced the Dow Jones Industrial Average -- the world's longest running stock market indicator -- will underlie two leveraged exchange-traded funds launched by ProShare Advisors LLC. The Short Dow30 ProShares and Ultra Dow30 ProShares ETFs debuted today on the American Stock Exchange.
The Short Dow30 ProShares and Ultra Dow30 ProShares ETFs are expected to utilize leveraged short and long positions in anticipation of stock market movements. Designed for highly sophisticated active investors, the "bullish" Ultra Dow30 ProShares aims to achieve twice the daily returns of the underlying index before fees and expenses, and the "bearish" Short Dow30 ProShares aims to achieve the inverse of daily returns on the Dow Jones Industrial Average before fees and expenses.
"With more than $40 billion in assets, The Dow's significance among the investment community on both Wall and Main Street continues to grow. ProShares' new ETFs are the latest in a range of financial products -- from mutual funds to ETFs to futures and options -- linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average," said Michael A. Petronella, President of Dow Jones Indexes/Ventures.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which turned 110 years old on May 26, 2006, is a price-weighted index that measures 30 of the biggest and most widely recognized blue-chip U.S. stocks. Originally created by Charles Dow in 1896 to gauge the new industrial economy, the term "industrial" is broadly defined so the index accurately reflects the performance of the U.S. stock market today. The 30 companies represent all 10 industries and 18 supersectors of the Industry Classification Benchmark, except for Utilities, which has its own Dow Jones Average.
When The Dow was initially created, its value was calculated by adding up the component stock prices and dividing by the number of components. To calculate the index today, the sum of the stock prices are divided by an index divisor, which is used to adjust for stock splits and other corporate actions that may affect the index's composition.
For more information on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, please visit www.djindexes.com.
Journalists may e-mail questions regarding this press release to PR-Indexes@dowjones.com or contact Dow Jones Indexes/STOXX press office:
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About Dow Jones Indexes
Dow Jones Indexes is part of Dow Jones & Company, which publishes the world's most vital business and financial news and information. Dow Jones Indexes is a premier global provider of investable indexes, including the Dow Jones Averages and the Dow Jones Global, Regional, Country and Sector Titans Indexes and is co-owner of the Pan-European Dow Jones STOXX Indexes. Together with Wilshire Associates, Dow Jones Indexes markets and licenses the Dow Jones Wilshire index family, which includes the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 and its size, style, and sector indexes. Dow Jones Indexes also offers a number of specialty indexes including hedge fund, commodity and credit derivative indexes.
In addition to Dow Jones Indexes, Dow Jones & Company (NYSE:DJ) (dowjones.com) publishes The Wall Street Journal and its international and online editions, Barron's and the Far Eastern Economic Review, Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch and the Ottaway group of community newspapers. Dow Jones is co-owner with Reuters Group of Factiva and with Hearst of SmartMoney. Dow Jones also provides news content to CNBC and radio stations in the U.S.
"Dow Jones," "The Dow" and "Dow Jones Industrial Average(tm)," are trademarks of Dow Jones & Company, Inc. and have been licensed for use for certain purposes by ProShare Advisors LLC. The Short Dow30 ProShares and Ultra Dow 30 ProShares ETFs based on The Dow(tm) are not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by Dow Jones, and Dow Jones makes no representation regarding the advisability of trading in such ETFs.
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