First Trust May List Diversified Futures ETF

First Trust, the tenth-largest U.S.ETF issuer, has filed plans with the Securities and Exchange Commission to possibly list the First Trust Morningstar Diversified Futures Fund. The filing did not include a ticker or expense ratio. The fund would be actively managed, track the Morningstar Diversified Futures Index and invest in commodity, currency and equity futures. The fund will attempt to capture the economic benefit derived from rising and declining trends based on the "moving average" price changes of commodity futures, currency futures and equity futures. In an attempt to capture these trends, the Fund's investments are generally positioned as either "long," "short" or "flat." To be "long" means to hold or be exposed to a security or instrument with the expectation that its value will increase over time. To be "short" means to sell or be exposed to a security or instrument with the expectation that it will fall in value," according to the filing. The new First Trust fund could be a potential rival to the WisdomTree Managed Futures Strategy Fund

. WDTI invests in a combination of U.S. treasury futures, currency futures, non-deliverable currency forwards, commodity futures, commodity swaps, U.S. government and money market securities. First Trust had 69 ETFs and over $7.9 billion in assets under management at the end of April, according to ETF Industry Association data.