Van Eck commodities ETF to avoid contango

Van Eck marketing director Kristen Capuano says the company has sought to minimize the effects of contango by using a benchmark that places less emphasis on the front end of the futures curve. The proposed ETF is set to track the same underlying index as the firm's recently launched mutual fund - the UBS Bloomberg Constant Maturity Commodity Total Return Index (CMCI). When the ETF begins operations, both funds will have the same broad commodity futures base, investing in derivatives instruments such as swap agreements, commodity futures contracts and options on futures contracts. When...