Advisers alarmed by 'dangerous' inverse ETF trend

Of the six most-purchased funds on Ascentric for the month ending 16 December, five were short ETFs. One product, the DB X FTSE 100 Short ETF, was also the seventh most popular fund on Asecntric in the whole of 2011. Adrian Shandley, managing director of Premier Wealth Management, called the trend for short ETFs "alarming". Physical ETFs that track the price of an underlying index - for example, gold or a stock market - are a low cost way to access a market, he said. But short funds that do not physically hold the asset are too risky for most advisers. "These kinds of investment al...