Van Eck Launches Hard Assets ETF

Van Eck Global this week launched the Market Vectors Hard Asset Producers ETF(HAP Quote) which is based on an index the New York asset manager created with help from international investor Jim Rogers.

Over the last month or so anything having to do with hard assets, the commodities themselves and the companies that mine or produce them, have been crushed. This part of the market has undergone an extreme dislocation that may not have finished playing out yet.

The simple fact that the resource space is down recently doesn't make HAP a good fund or a bad fund. Nor is the timing of the introduction of the fund good or bad. HAP is simply a new way to access this part of the materials space. ...