Direxion Adds Bearish Brazil, South Korea ETFs to Lineup

Direxion, the second-largest issuer of inverse and leveraged ETFs, today introduced bearish equivalents for two of its recently introduced bullish, triple-leveraged funds. The Massachusetts-based ETF issuer introduced the Direxion Daily Brazil Bear 3X Shares BRZS and the Direxion Daily South Korea Bear 3X Shares KORZ on Wednesday. Direxion's launch of those two products comes about three weeks after the firm introduced the Direxion Daily South Korea Bull 3X Shares KORU and the Direxion Daily Brazil Bull 3X Shares BRZU. As is the the case with BRZU, the Direxion Daily Brazil Bear 3X Shares is a play on the MSCI Brazil Index, the same index tracked by the popular iShares MSCI Capped Brazil Index Fund. BRZS will seek to deliver the three times the daily inverse returns of that index. The Direxion Daily South Korea Bear 3X Shares will attempt to deliver three times the daily inverse returns of the MSCI South Korea Index, the index used by the iShares MSCI South Korea Capped Index Fund EWY. Both of the new ETFs have annual expense ratios of one percent. As was previously noted, Direxion's leveraged Brazil plays are not the first such funds to come to market. Rival ProShares offers the ProShares Ultra MSCI Brazil UBR and the ProShares UltraShort MSCI Brazil BZQ, though those are double-leveraged ETFs. Direxion's South Korea ETFs are the first leveraged plays on that country. Direxion's other bearish triple-leveraged country-specific emerging markets ETFs include the Direxion Daily Russia Bear 3X Shares RUSS and the Direxion Daily China Bear 3X Shares YANG. For more on ETFs, click here.