ETF Securities List 29 Short ETCs On The London Stock Exchange - 10 Short Index ETCs and 19 Short Individual ETCs List In London's Exchange Traded Commodities Segment

ETF Securities, the global pioneer of exchange traded commodities (ETCs) will add to its ETC platform with the introduction of 29 Short ETCs today. The Short ETCs will complement ETF Securities' existing 55 Classic and Forward ETCs which already provide investors long exposure to the commodities market.

The Short ETCs to be listed on the London Stock Exchange today will provide investors access to a wide range of investment and trading strategies. The 29 new ETCs are all priced off indices and sub-indices of the Dow Jones - AIG Commodities IndexSM. As with the existing Classic and Forward ETCs, these new ETCs will comprise 19 individual commodities and 9 sub-indices.

Short ETCs allow investors to earn a positive return even when the index is falling. Short ETCs earn minus one times (-1x) the daily % change in the index (before fees and interest). For example, if the underlying index falls by 2% in a day, a Short ETC will increase by 2% and vice versa. Until now, it has been difficult for investors to benefit from falling prices as to go short, investors would have had to borrow ETCs and then sell those ETCs in the market-both of which was difficult and relatively expensive. Additionally, shorting exposed investors to unlimited losses but the new short ETCs limit the maximum loss to the investors' initial investment.

The ETC platform offered by ETF Securities has experienced massive growth in the past ten weeks with assets growing by 100% to over $4.3 billion and daily trading volumes doubling to over $100 million per day across five European exchanges. The increase in assets has occurred as a result of increased awareness of commodities and ETCs, volatile equity markets creating demand for non-correlated assets, positive commodity fundamentals, inflation fears and annual portfolio rebalancings made at the start of the new year.

ETFS Short ETCs to be listed are:

Four new commodities will also be added in the coming weeks: Cocoa, Lead, Tin and Platinum. With the new ETCs, ETF Securities will have created over 110 ETCs providing long, short and leveraged exposure to the world's major commodity markets.

In addition to their obvious benefits, Short ETCs provide investors with a wider range of investment strategies including: pairs trades when an investor has a view that one commodity will rise or fall in price relative to another commodity; reducing or increasing commodity price risk where a portfolio owns commodity companies; and investment strategies which exploit the shape of a commodity futures curve allowing investors to "short" the part of the curve in contango and to go "long" the part of the curve in backwardation.

Short ETCs also offer the same benefits as the existing ETCs. They are simple to trade on a major stock exchange, they can be settled and held in ordinary brokerage accounts, they are transparent and have a clear pricing formula. In addition, ETCs are highly liquid with multiple market makers providing liquidity and continuous pricing. Since Short ETCs are priced off the same underlying markets as the existing ETCs, this implies that the liquidity of Short ETCs will also be similar. In addition to liquidity on five European stock exchanges, ETF Securities can issue $250 million of additional new Short ETCs each day. In total, ETF Securities can create over $1 billion of new ETCs on a daily basis across its range of over 110 ETCs. The minimum investment is one ETC.

33 Leveraged ETCs are also to be listed in the coming weeks. The Leveraged ETCs will allow investors to earn a positive return when the index is rising with 50% less capital. Leveraged ETCs earn two times (+2x) the daily % change in the index (before fees and interest).

In total, ETF Securities now offer platforms of physically backed precious metal ETCs and Classic, Forward, Short and Leveraged ETCs providing exposure to energy, agriculture, livestock, industrial metals and precious metals. The ETCs have been listed on five major European stock exchanges in dedicated ETC trading segments.

First dealings in Short ETCs commence on the London Stock Exchange today.

Commenting on the listing of another world first, Graham Tuckwell, Chairman of ETF Securities, said:

"ETF Securities is synonymous with exchange traded commodities (ETCs). By offering a full platform of ETCs, investors can now utilise ETCs for almost any commodity investment and trading strategy. The new Short and Leveraged ETCs will complement the existing ETCs which provide unleveraged long exposure through Physical, Classic and Forward ETCs. Now investors can take advantage of rising or falling commodity prices in addition to choice of ETCs along each commodity futures curve.

"We have seen unrivalled support and demand for ETCs. Investors are now realising that commodities can offer benefits to a portfolio due to their low correlation to equities. In times of economic or financial upheaval, many independent studies have shown that commodities can benefit a portfolio by lowering volatility and/or increasing returns.

"Over the past ten weeks there has been a huge surge in global demand for ETCs and we recently passed the landmark of $4 billion invested in our existing offering. Over this period, assets and trading volumes are up over 100%. With listings on five of Europe's major exchanges ETF Securities has successfully delivered simple, cost-efficient and accessible products for all investors."

Commenting on the launch Pietro Poletto, Head of ETF and ETC Markets at London Stock Exchange Group,said:

"These new Short ETCs are a very welcome new addition to our markets, and with the forthcoming Leveraged ETCs will take the number of trading products available on our Exchange Traded Commodities market segment to well over 100.

"As well as being able to access a broad range of commodities, including for the first time Cocoa, Lead and Tin, investors will now have a simple way to gain short and leveraged ETC exposure, putting some of the types of trading strategies at use in the equities markets at their fingertips.

I am sure that this additional flexibility will contribute to the growth in our dedicated Exchange Traded Commodities segment, which has started the year very strongly, with £1.3 billion worth of trading in January, nearly double the previous monthly record"