Dour Climate Puts Real Estate ETF Auction On Hold

The first-ever initial public offering open auction launch of exchange traded funds(ETFs) was set for Wednesday, but has been delayed as MacroMarkets deemed the real estate market conditions unhealthy.

Blame the severely slumping real estate market rather than a lack of interest in the planned U.S. housing market ETFs, have led the company to delay the launch. Market uncertainty is still the rule among investors so now may not be an ideal time to try to raise assets, says Whitney White, chief technology officer at WR Hambrecht + Co.

White is in charge of the IPO auction of MacroShares Major Metro Housing Up (UMM) and the MacroShares Major Metro Housing Down (DMM), reports IndexUniverse.

MacroMarkets is filing for a $1 billion initial public offering for the housing ETFs. Although one analyst deemed the amount rather high, it is not unreasonable, because in the long run the funds could be billion-dollar ventures, and they should do well.

White says that setting the asset ceiling higher is better, because if there was more demand than the ceiling, they would have to file for more shares with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

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Comment by Rochester MN Real Estate

2008-11-13 13:40:04

Interesting post … just another reason why we need to rally the real estate market. In the midwest we are expect ‘09 to be the start of the turn around … hopefully the rest of the country with follow suit.

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