Notice of Lead Plaintiff Deadline for Shareholders in the ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil Class Action Lawsuit

Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed in the Southern District of New York on behalf of purchasers of ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil (ARCX:UCO) securities between March 6, 2020 and April 27, 2020, inclusive (the “Class Period”). The case is captioned Di Scala v. ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil, No. 20-cv-05865, and is assigned to Judge Naomi R. Buchwald. The UCO class action lawsuit charges UCO, its sponsor, and certain of its officers with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 permits any investor who purchased UCO securities during the Class Period to seek appointment as lead plaintiff in the UCO class action lawsuit. A lead plaintiff will act on behalf of all other class members in directing the UCO class action lawsuit. The lead plaintiff can select a law firm of its choice to litigate the UCO class action lawsuit. An investor’s ability to share in any potential future recovery of the UCO class action lawsuit is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff of the UCO class action lawsuit or have questions concerning your rights regarding the UCO class action lawsuit, please provide your information here or contact counsel, J.C. Sanchez of Robbins Geller, at 800/449-4900 or 619/231-1058 or via e-mail at [e-mail]. Lead plaintiff motions for the UCO class action lawsuit must be filed with the court no later than September 28, 2020.

UCO is an exchange traded fund (“ETF”) purportedly designed to reflect the performance of crude oil as measured by the price of West Texas Intermediate (“WTI”) sweet, light crude oil futures contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The main delivery and price settlement point for WTI is Cushing, Oklahoma.

The UCO class action lawsuit alleges that during the Class Period, defendants stated that UCO would achieve its investment objective by seeking daily investment results, before fees and expenses, that correspond to two times the performance of its benchmark for a single day, and not for any other period. However, unbeknownst to investors, extraordinary market conditions in early 2020 made UCO’s purported investment objective and strategy unfeasible. Oil demand fell precipitously as governments imposed lockdowns and businesses halted operations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, in early March 2020, Saudi Arabia and Russia launched an oil price war, increasing production and slashing export prices in a bid to increase the global market share of their domestic petrochemical enterprises. As excess oil supply increased and oil prices waned, the facilities available for storage in Cushing, Oklahoma approached capacity, ultimately causing a rare market dynamic known as “super contango,” in which the futures prices for oil substantially exceed the spot price. At the same time, retail investors began pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into UCO in an attempt to “buy the dip,” believing (correctly) that the price of oil would rebound as economies exited lockdown periods and the Russia/Saudi oil price war ended. Because of the nature of UCO’s investment strategy, these converging factors caused UCO to suffer exceptional losses and undermined UCO’s ability to meet its ostensible investment objective.