BetaPro Management Inc. will hold special meetings of unitholders on July 24 to consider changing the underlying index of four exchange traded funds, the company said Thursday.

“The proposed changes are in response to market demand and should in both cases significantly improve the market liquidity of these ETFs,” says Howard Atkinson, president of Toronto-based BetaPro.

At the special meetings, unitholders of Horizons BetaPro DJ-AIG Agricultural Grains Bull Plus ETF and Horizons BetaPro DJ-AIG Agricultural Grains Bear Plus ETF will be asked to consider revising the investment objectives of the two ETFs by replacing the Dow Jones-UBS grains subindex with the S&P Agribusiness North America index.

The S&P Agribusiness North America index is designed to provide liquid exposure to the upstream and downstream supply chain of the agribusiness sector. The index includes some of the largest publicly traded agribusiness companies trading on the U.S

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It was bound to happen, I suppose. While exchange-traded funds have not yet attracted the multi-trillions of dollars that mutual funds have, ETFs have become popular enough they’re starting to acquire some of the bad habits of their older rivals.

The first generation of ETFs were low-cost, broadly diversified products from firms like Barclays and Vanguard, well suited to average investors wishing to expose the core of their portfolios to the broad equity market.

But we are well into the second phase of ETF proliferation, with more volatile sector ETFs sporting considerably higher price tags. How complex it’s become can be inferred from the fact BetaPro Management Inc. is hosting an all-day Horizons ETF University session today at Ryerson University, part of a seven-city road show. 

BetaPro came under fire last week from consumer advocacy group FAIR for not disclosing clearly enough

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