iShares launched their first actively managed ETF this week on the NYSE Arca...

• ALT - the iShares Diversified Alternatives Trust.

The new ETF will consist of bond, commodity, currency and interest rate futures in order to expose discrepancies in the pricing of financial instruments. The new financial ETF wants to profit from the deviations of current asset prices and their historical norms.

Due to the complexity of the pricing structure, strategy and analysis, this new ETF will have to be "actively managed" by a fund manager in order to make it successful. While it's not the first actively managed fund to hit the market, it is definitely one of its own kind and the first of this type of ETF for iShares.

Earlier this  month I wrote some blog posts about the launch of two new State ETFs...

• Texas State ETF (TXF)
• Oklahoma State  ETF (OOK)

As of today, Geary Advisors announced they are also reducing fees on the new funds. And they are using a portion of the fees to help the fight against autism.

"Geary Advisors, LLC, announced today that it is in the process of reducing the fund fees for its two state-based exchange-traded funds OOK and TXF. The advisor has agreed to reduce investment advisory management fees and to reimburse other expenses to the extent the total annual fund operating expenses, as a percentage of average daily net assets, exceed .20 percent. A reduction or reimbursement lowers the expense ratio."

"At least 10 percent of the OOK and TXF management fees will go to support Aaron's Bridge, an Oklahoma nonprofit  organization working to establish and provide more treatment options in Oklahoma and Texas for children with developmental disabilities, including Autism Spectrum Disorder."

Charles Schwab is now part of the ETF universe by launching four new index ETFs...

1. SCHF - the Schwab International Equity ETF
2. SCHX - the Schwab US Large-Cap ETF
3. SCHA- the Schwab US Small-Cap ETF
4. SCHB - the Schwab US Broad Market ETF

SCHF is a foreign ETF that will track the FTSE Developend ex-US Index, and index with over 14oo international stocks. The two style ETFs SCHX (large-cap) and SCHA (small-cap) will track Dow Jones Indexes.

While these are the first few ETFs for Schwab, they will not be the last. They plan on rolling out more in the future. Also, in order to gain traction in the competitive ETF market, Schwab is offering online commission free trading for its customers who buy and sell these ETFs. That works.

Another new gold ETF hit the market this week. This time it's a small-cap style ETF from Van Eck Global.

GDXJ will track the Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners Index, which consists of small-cap stocks in the gold and precious metal mining industry. Some of the 38 companies included in the new ETF are New Gold Inc, Alamos Gold, and Silver Standard Resources.

Van Eck is also the mastermind behind GDX - the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF, which launched back in 2006. GDX has 31 gold mining company stocks in its holdings.

To see a list of more gold ETFs like GDXJ and GDX, look no further than our list of gold ETFs.