Voldy morts of the ultra variety

Good morning Voldy morts! I am safely old enough (51) to hope and pray my spam filter catches most of the EXPLICIT come-ons of a device-loving world.

Which is why I raise an eyebrow when I see some of the names of the latest tools for equities that track indexes, the ETFs of the world. I have a good friend around the corner here in sunny but rainy-this-month Tiburon who specializes in these Exchange-Traded Funds, which have extremely low expense ratios for investors and represent, or track, any number of items collectively.

Thus, there are branded ETFs for gold, bank stocks, emerging markets, China, Europe, oil companies, cattle I suppose, even bonds. There are ETFs for every degree of longitude and latitude on the globe. There might be, for all I know, ETFs that represent companies specifically in the business of manufacturing red ant farms.

My friend around the corner is a wizard about these funds. I have been sharing with him my amazement that the wonderful companies I try to follow and own are all getting, how shall I say in a way that does not trigger my musubi spam filter: HAMMERED!

I asked my friend if there were ways to invest in baskets that represented bigtime positions for believers; in short, a leveraged BUY on the stock market, and on real estate and other classes of STUFF. So that if and when the stock markets of the world, like our beloved Voldy morts, unite and shake off their January (heck, six-month) Blues, I might own something that is taking leaps and bounds through the forest, like a doe on a good day.

Yes, he said, and here they are:

• The UWM (2x R2000) -- technically called the ProShares Ultra Russell 2000.
• The URE (2x US RE Index) -- technically called the ProShares Ultra Real Estate.
• The UYG (2x Financials) -- technically called the ProShares Ultra Financials.

Thus, you can be, thanks to the mathematics of leverage, ultra LONG the Russell 2000 Index, which represents small companies, and so on. Ultra LONG -- one has to like the way that sounds in an investment climate that thus far in 2008 has been as sopping wet as Northern California. I just hope, fellow Voldy morts, the spam filter deals with it in the correct fashion.

-- Your friendly neighborhood Thom in Tiburon (For more, ThomCalandra.com)