PIMCO has launched Foreign Currency Strategy Exchange Traded Fund (FORX)

The fund will be jointly managed by Scott Mather, managing director and head of global portfolio management; Vineer Bhansali, managing director and head of quantitative investment portfolios; and Thomas Kressin, senior vice president and head of European foreign exchange.

Rising debt levels, limited fiscal flexibility and easy monetary policy in the U.S. may weigh on the dollar for years. FORX is a portfolio of currencies and local currency bonds actively managed to help investors diversify out of the dollar and preserve their purchasing power. The active management is a notable difference for an ETF marketplace made up mostly of passive products in which investors generally must form their own views on individual currencies or currency indexes.

“The ongoing transition away from the dollar as the preeminent global reserve currency is continuing and many competing currencies increasingly offer better yields and long-term credit dynamics," said Mr. Mather. "FORX is a purer way to gain foreign currency exposure and also avoids the unwanted exposures that can come with holding indirect currency plays such as equities or commodities."

PIMCO has decades of experience managing currencies on behalf of large institutional clients and has deep executional ability in the multi-trillion-dollar foreign currency market. Strategic allocations across developed and emerging currencies are based on the firm’s investment outlook, which includes macroeconomic insights formulated by the firm’s Investment Committee and based on the output of cyclical and secular economic forums.

FORX continues the expansion and innovation of PIMCO’s range of actively managed ETFs, which combine PIMCO’s time-tested global investment process with the tradability of the ETF vehicle, providing investors with intraday pricing and daily portfolio disclosure in a single share class.