Claymore Closing Four ETFs: EXB, ROB, CRO, and IRO

Claymore Securities announced August 13, 2010 its intent to close and liquidate four ETFs with the last day of trading set for September 10, 2010.

I advise all shareholders to avoid the liquidation process by selling their shares on the open market prior to the de-listing date.  Be sure to use a limit order as these funds are thinly traded.

The four affected products are:

• Claymore/Beacon Global Exchanges, Brokers & Asset Managers Index ETF (EXB)
• Claymore/Robb Report Global Luxury Index ETF (ROB)
• Claymore/Zacks Country Rotation ETF (CRO)
• Claymore/Zacks Dividend Rotation ETF (IRO)

These four funds will bring the lifetime closure count to 151, consisting of 138 ETFs and 13 ETNs.  The year-to-date number will be 27, all of them ETFs.  This is slower than the pace of the past two years; 58 products closed in 2008 and 56 closed in 2009.

A Claymore spokesman once told me they intended to keep many questionable products open for at least three years and hope assets start moving after the funds received 3-year Morningstar ratings.  The closing funds all recently surpassed their third anniversaries.

These Claymore ETF closings should come as no surprise to readers of my monthly ETF Deathwatch report, on which three of them have been consistently featured.  IRO is the one exception.   With a total of a dozen Claymore ETFs on the current ETF Deathwatch list, these four could be just the start.  Eight others to be concerned about:

• Claymore/BBD High Income (LVL)
• Claymore/BNY Mellon EW Euro-Pacific LDRs (EEN)
• Claymore/BNY Mellon International Small Cap LDRs (XGC) (note: XGC had an extreme-makeover a year ago, which doesn’t appear to have helped)
• Claymore/Ocean Tomo Growth (OTR)
• Claymore/Ocean Tomo Patent (OTP)
• Claymore/Sabrient Defender (DEF)
• Claymore CEF Index GS Connect ETN (GCE)
• Claymore U.S. Capital Markets Micro-Term Fixed Income (ULQ)

Most of these funds are aged well beyond the three years Claymore apparently extends to fledgling funds, so it is not clear what is keeping them alive at this stage.

Disclosure covering writer, editor, publisher, and affiliates: No positions in any of the securities mentioned. No positions in any of the companies or ETF sponsors mentioned.  No income, revenue, or other compensation (either directly or indirectly) received from, or on behalf of, any of the companies or ETF sponsors mentioned.