 | |
| Industry | Financial services |
|---|---|
| Founded | ProFunds Group: 1997 ProShares: 2006 |
| Founders | Louis Mayberg Michael Sapir |
| Headquarters | Bethesda, Maryland |
| Products | Exchange-traded funds |
| AUM | US$70 billion (2024) [1] |
| Website | www |
ProShares is an issuer of exchange-traded funds, including inverse exchange-traded funds, and similar products. [2]
ProFunds Group was founded in 1997 by former Rydex employees Louis Mayberg and Michael Sapir for $100,000. [3] [4] That year, it introduced bear market inverse mutual funds.
In 2006, ProFunds Group launched ProShares and its first inverse exchange-traded fund. [5] [6] [7]
In October 2021, the company launched an exchange-traded fund that invests in Bitcoin futures contracts. [1] [8]
On October 2, 2023, ProShares launched 3 Ethereum Futures ETFs in the US, becoming one of the first companies to launch an Ethereum ETF in US history. [9]
Passive management is an investing strategy that tracks a market-weighted index or portfolio. Passive management is most common on the equity market, where index funds track a stock market index, but it is becoming more common in other investment types, including bonds, commodities and hedge funds.
The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 of the largest companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices and includes approximately 80% of the total market capitalization of U.S. public companies, with an aggregate market cap of more than $43 trillion as of January 2024.
Fidelity Investments, formerly known as Fidelity Management & Research (FMR), is an American multinational financial services corporation based in Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1946, the company is one of the largest asset managers in the world, with $5.8 trillion in assets under management, and $15.0 trillion in assets under administration, as of September 2024, Fidelity Investments operates a brokerage firm, manages a large family of mutual funds, provides fund distribution and investment advice, retirement services, index funds, wealth management, securities execution and clearance, asset custody, and life insurance.
An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of investment fund that is also an exchange-traded product, i.e., it is traded on stock exchanges. ETFs own financial assets such as stocks, bonds, currencies, debts, futures contracts, and/or commodities such as gold bars. Many ETFs provide some level of diversification compared to owning an individual stock.
The Vanguard Group, Inc. is an American registered investment advisor founded on May 1, 1975, and based in Malvern, Pennsylvania, with about $9.3 trillion in global assets under management as of May 2024. It is the largest provider of mutual funds and the second-largest provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the world after BlackRock's iShares. In addition to mutual funds and ETFs, Vanguard offers brokerage services, educational account services, financial planning, asset management, and trust services. Several mutual funds managed by Vanguard are ranked at the top of the list of US mutual funds by assets under management. Along with BlackRock and State Street, Vanguard is considered to be one of the Big Three index fund managers that play a dominant role in corporate America.
BlackRock, Inc. is an American multinational investment company. Founded in 1988, initially as an enterprise risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, with US$11.5 trillion in assets under management as of December 31, 2023. Headquartered in New York City, BlackRock has 70 offices in 30 countries, and clients in 100 countries.
An inverse exchange-traded fund is an exchange-traded fund (ETF), traded on a public stock market, which is designed to perform as the inverse of whatever index or benchmark it is designed to track. These funds work by using short selling, trading derivatives such as futures contracts, and other leveraged investment techniques.
An exchange-traded product (ETP) is a regularly priced security which trades during the day on a national stock exchange. ETPs may embed derivatives but it is not a requirement that they do so – and the investment memorandum should be read with care to ensure that the pricing methodology and use of derivatives is explicitly stated. Typically, individual underlying securities, such as stocks and bonds, are not considered ETPs.
Global X ETFs is a New York-based provider of exchange-traded funds that facilitates access to investment opportunities across the global markets. Founded in 2008, it has approximately $40 billion in managed assets, across more than 80 different products. The ETF issuer and manager is widely known for its Thematic Growth, Income and International product suites, in addition to its Core, Commodities and Alpha strategies. In July 2018, the company was acquired by Mirae Asset Global Investments.
WisdomTree, Inc. is a global exchange-traded fund (ETF) and exchange-traded product (ETP) sponsor and asset manager with headquarters in New York. WisdomTree launched its first ETFs in June 2006, and became one of the major ETF providers in the United States. WisdomTree sponsors different ETFs that span asset classes and countries worldwide. Categories include: U.S. and International Equity, Currency, Fixed Income and Alternatives.
Robinhood Markets, Inc. is an American financial services company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The company provides an electronic trading platform accessible via mobile app that facilitates commission-free trades of stocks, exchange-traded funds and cryptocurrency, as well as cryptocurrency wallets, credit cards and other banking services. The company's revenue comes from transaction-based revenues, net interest income, and subscription fees. The company has 24.3 million funded customers, 11.0 million monthly active users, and $152 billion in assets under custody.
Interactive Brokers, Inc. (IB), headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, is an American multinational brokerage firm which operates the largest electronic trading platform in the United States by number of daily average revenue trades. In 2023, the platform processed an average of 3 million trades per trading day. Interactive Brokers is the largest foreign exchange market broker and is one of the largest prime brokers servicing commodity brokers. The company brokers stocks, options, futures contracts, exchange of futures for physicals, options on futures, bonds, mutual funds, currency, cryptocurrency, contracts for difference, derivatives, and event-based trading contracts on election and other outcomes. Interactive Brokers offers direct market access, omnibus and non-disclosed broker accounts, and provides clearing services. The firm has operations in 34 countries and 27 currencies and has 2.6 million institutional and individual brokerage customers, with total customer equity of US$426 billion as of December 31, 2023. In addition to its headquarters in Greenwich, on the Gold Coast of Connecticut, the company has offices in major financial centers worldwide. More than half of the company's customers reside outside the United States, in approximately 200 countries.
Kraken is a United States–based cryptocurrency exchange, founded in 2011. It was one of the first bitcoin exchanges to be listed on Bloomberg Terminal and was valued at US$3 billion in January 2024. The company has been the subject of several regulatory investigations since 2018, and has agreed to cumulative fines of over $30 million.
Digital Currency Group Inc. (DCG) is a venture capital company focusing on the digital currency market. It is located in Stamford, Connecticut. The company has the subsidiaries Foundry, Genesis, Grayscale Investments, and Luno. It also formerly owned CoinDesk.
ShapeShift AG was a cryptocurrency exchange which operated from 2017 to 2016 and was headquartered in Switzerland.
ARK Investment Management LLC is an American investment management firm based in St. Petersburg, Florida, that manages several actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs). It was founded by Cathie Wood in 2014. At the height of February 2021, the company had US$50 billion in assets under management. As of October 2023, assets had dropped to $6.71 billion, after a period of poor performance.
Pantera Capital is an American hedge fund and venture capital firm focused on digital assets headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The fund specializes in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. It is one of the largest digital asset funds in the world by managed assets.
Grayscale Investments, LLC is an American digital currency asset management company and subsidiary of Digital Currency Group founded in 2013 and based in Stamford, Connecticut.
China Southern Asset Management is a Chinese asset management company founded in 1998. It is considered one of the largest asset management companies in China.
VanEck is an American investment management firm headquartered in New York City. The firm is primarily engaged in issuing exchange-traded fund (ETF) products although it also deals with mutual funds and separately managed accounts for institutional investors. It was a pioneer of investing in foreign growth stocks as well as gold investing.
