Thursday Tidbits

Speaking of Romania the Slovakian koruna will be no more as Slovakia has been accepted into adopting the euro starting Jan 1, 2009 (save for a potential snag or two). I don't know a lot about Slovakia but the bigger macro for these countries is smaller, faster growing, cheaper labor, younger population than the European old gard makes them generally attractive as an investment destination.

IndexUniverse is reporting that there will be two platinum related ETNs from ETRACS listing very soon, one will go long platinum and have ticker PTM and the other will go short platinum with ticker PTD.

This chart compares the platinum product from ETF Securities in the UK versus GLD (client holding). The basic case for platinum as I understand it is there is less of it than gold and it gets consumed for industrial purposes.

Van Eck launched a double long euro ETN, ticker URR, and a double short euro ETN, ticker DRR. These look a little funky to me as there are more moving parts to the calculation than you might think. IndexUniverse explains it here.

According to the IndexUniverse article the index for URR is up 12.8% YTD through April 30. According to Yahoo Finance the Rydex Euro Fund (FXE) is up 6.9% so despite my perceived funkiness that seems pretty reasonable. DRR YTD through April 30 is down 10.68%.

Rydex has filed for new currency ETFs; Russian ruble, Hong Kong dollar (this is an odd one, HKD is pegged to the greenback), South African rand and Singapore dollar. Hat tip to 24/7 Wallstreet for this info.

All of these new products, which I just heard about yesterday, tie in with the ongoing thread of more products allowing for more sophisticated portfolios. For do-it-yourselfers who are inclined to learn about them and proceed with moderation (this comment assumes the products all work which remains to be seen) I think this is a big positive.

Anyone saying they can't keep track of all of them, I hear you. There have been a slew of double long and double short commodity products that I cannot keep straight. For my tastes commodities are volatile enough that single exposure is good enough for me.

As more things come it creates some interesting sorts of pairings like trading the spread between platinum and gold or the AUDNZD rate (once/if the WisdomTree New Zealand ETF lists). Even if you have no plans to make these sorts of trades learning about them may offer some utility for what you are comfortable doing.

Of the products mentioned in this post I am most interested in the Sing dollar. I have been interested in it for a while, hopefully they follow through with it.

One commodity ETF or ETN I'd like to see is coffee. I am of the opinion that coffee consumption in Asia could skyrocket yet still have virtually no market share but if correct that could have a meaningful impact on the supply and demand equation for coffee. To be clear coffee will never be the drink of choice in Asia.

And finally from the hey that farm in Uruguay doesn't look so bad file is this rather lengthy look at the state of the US power grid. Yikes.