Long/short equity ETFs are a category with four years of historyand very little market traction to date, but that may be changing.One fund in this category, ProShares Large Cap Core Plus (CSM) hasleveraged strong recent performance to reach about $100 million inassets under management. Launched in July of 2009, the fund’s indexranks the 500 largest U.S. stocks using quantitative factors. Itthen overweights the top-ranked stocks by 30 percent of assets andgoes short the lowest-ranked stocks with a 30 percent weight –thus replicating a 130/30 strategy. The fund returned16.28 percent in 2012 and 7.17 percent in the first twomonths of 2013 to earn a Morningstar five-star rating.

For investors who prefer a strategy that balances long and shortexposures equally, ProShares offers ProShares RAFI Long/Short ETF(RALS). The fund holds most of the 500 largest U.S. stocks eitherlong or short, in approximately balanced weights. It returned6.55 percent in the first two months of 2013.

The largest long/short equity ETF fund-of-funds, Accuvest GlobalLong Short (AGLS), uses quantitative rankings to go long ontop-ranked country-specific ETFs and short on lower-ranked countryETFs. Even with a fairly high net expense ratio currently listed at5.86 percent, the fund produced a 2012 return of9.39 percent.