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Oil ETF

Oil backed ETF United States Oil Fund (USO) made its trading debut on the AMEX Monday, giving investors and speculators an exchange-listed proxy on crude oil futures price. The fund will track the West Texas Intermediate crude oil contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). See the full story at FT.com.

Included in FT's coverage was mention of the Brent crude oil ETF listed on the London Stock Exchange. Apparently, this earlier oil ETF has not been as successful as some would have hoped, given recent demand for oil related investments. For a bit more background on the oil ETFs, please see this article from the Resource Investor website.

Some of the coverage of this newly listed American ETF has been less than gushing. From a Google News search, I uncovered a few pieces whose titles suggest the ETF is not for most retail investors. Interesting. There was a pretty interesting commentary in today's Financial Times regarding the USO ETF and the possibilities for hedging and the like that might arise out of its issuance. Wish I had a link to the full commentary, but that is a subscriber feature.

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