Stocks to Watch

ALPS, the Denver-based exchange-traded fund sponsor known as one of the first firms to actively market ETFs, filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to market a new high-volatility ETF that will track an index of a hypothetical portfolio comprising exchange-traded put options.

The U.S. Equity High Volatility Put Write Index Fund will be listed on Arca, the New York Stock Exchange’s electronic trading platform under the symbol “HVPW,” and will have an annual expense ratio of 0.95 percent, according to the filing. The fund will be ALPS’s fourth ETF.

With the market’s recent upswing, HPVW might be going into registration at a propitious time. High-volatility stocks generally experience significant declines in a bear market, but when stocks are rallying, high-volatility stocks can experience greater gains.

Although low-volatility ETFs, such as the PowerShares S&P Low Volatility ETF (NYSEArca: SPLV), have been popular since they came on the scene last spring, the high-volatility ETF landscape is more limited. HVPW is

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Salient Advisors, a Houston-based asset manager, is taking steps with U.S. regulators to gain permission to market exchange-traded funds, and plans for its first ETF to be focused on energy master limited partnerships.

In a filing it submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Salient requested so-called exemptive relief from sections of the 1940s Investment Act to market actively managed ETFs and fund-of-funds ETFs.

The company detailed plans for its initial fund, the Salient MLP and Energy Infrastructure ETF, which would invest in master limited partnerships as well as in energy infrastructure companies.

The Salient fund would enter an already well-populated space of MLP ETFs sponsored by companies like Alerian and Van Eck. The biggest MLP-related exchange-traded product is the J.P.

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