Invesco's PowerShares [profile] arm and an ETF startup founded by an ex-PowerShares bigwig each won ETF accolades earlier this month in Arizona.

Ben Fulton Elkhorn Chief Executive Officer, Founder

On December 7 during a networking luncheon at a conference in Scottsdale, IMN and Institutional Investor's Journal of Index Investing presented the seven William F. Sharpe Indexing Achievement Awards for 2015.

The PowerShares FTSE RAFI U.S. 1000 Portfolio won "ETF Product of the Year," while the Elkhorn S&P 500 Capital Expenditures Portfolio won "ETF Innovation of the Year." The PowerShares beat out the Elkhorn one, as well as ETFs from Deutsche and First Trust. In the innovation category, the Elkhorn ETF beat out offerings from Direxion, DWA, and PowerShares.

Jeaneen Terrio, a spokeswoman for Invesco, commented on the PowerShares ETF's victory:

Invesco PowerShares is extremely pleased to receive this important award which recognizes our dedication to delivering industry leading products. PRF was one of the first smart beta ETFs and ten years later continues to be recognized for having a significant impact on the ETF industry. This was the fifth consecutive year a PowerShares ETF was recognized with the William F. Sharpe award, with our multi-strategy alternative portfolio-LALT-being award Product of the Year in 2014.

Ben Fulton, former managing director of PowerShares, founded Elkhorn in 2013 and launched Elkhorn's first ETF this year.

"We are proud to be recognized as innovators in the ETF industry," Fulton stated. "CAPX is the only expenditures-focused ETF available today, providing investors access to S&P 500 companies that are efficiently reinvesting back into their business to drive future growth. Historically, capex strategies have offered investors exposure to companies with strong performance later in the economic cycle as well as in rising rate environments."

The other five winners were: the FTSE RAFI U.S. 1000 Index, "Indexing Product of the Year"; the Barclays Fixed Income U.S. Core Balanced Risk Index, "Indexing Innovation of the Year"; the paper "A Framework for Assessing Factors and Implementing Smart Beta Stragies," by Jason Hsu, Vitali Kalesnik, and Vivek Viswanathan of Research Affiliates, "ETF/Indexing Paper of the Year (Journal of Index Investing); the paper "Sector Rotation with Macroeconomic Factors," by academics James Chong and G. Michael Phillips; and academic and VIX creator Robert Whaley, "Lifetime Achievement."

The conference was held at the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort & Spa at Gainey Ranch. 

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