An exchange-traded-fund (ETF) is similar to an index fund in that both types of securities are designed to track the performance of the index to which they are assigned. The crucial difference, however, lies in the fact that there is no centralized market for mutual funds, whereas ETFs trade on exchanges, and hence, charge lower fees to investors. At first, investment companies were reluctant to create currency ETFs, because they weren’t sure if demand was large enough to justify such products. Since currency trading surged in popularity, a spate of new currency ETFs have been introduced, the newest of which is designed to track the performance of a composite of ten of the world’s most important currencies. Previously, this type of product was only available to wealthy investors. Now, anyone with a brokerage account can index in such a way, and would be smart to do just that, in order to hedge against the decline in any single currency. The Daily News reports:

The fund is managed by DB Commodity Services LLC. “DBV will offer investors easy access to the returns of the currency markets by following a highly developed index previously available only to very sophisticated investors.”

Read More: New Means of Access to Currency Markets