US-Listed ETFs Sorted by Asset Class and Year-to-Date Return

UPDATES
Both CSMA and the double-exposure
CSMB are based on an index that uses a
quantitative methodology to track a dynamic
basket of securities held as long
or short positions and cash.
The leveraged CSMB has an annual
expense ratio of 0.55 percent, the same
price as CSMA.
Van Eck Launches
Competing Colombia ETF
Van Eck launched an equities ETF focused
on Colombia, South America’s
second-largest country, in mid-March.
The Market Vectors Colombia ETF
(NYSE Arca: COLX) competes directly with
Global X Funds’ two-year-old Global X
FTSE Colombia 20 ETF (NYSE Arca: GXG),
but COLX is the cheaper of the two funds.
COLX has an annual expense ratio of 0.75
percent compared with GXG’s recently
lowered net expense ratio of 0.78 percent.
COLX, which tracks the Market Vectors
Colombia Index, is designed as a
“pure-play” exposure to companies either
headquartered in Colombia or that
derive most of their revenue from Colombia.
Nearly a quarter of the mix is
allocated to companies listed outside of
Colombia that have significant business
in the country. In addition, the ETF’s
benchmark limits any one position to 8
percent of the fund in an effort to keep
the portfolio diversified by sector and
market capitalization, Van Eck said.
Colombia has benefited from strong
commodities price trends, solid exports
and better access to credit in recent
years, thanks to government policies
that have opened up the country to foreign
investment and allowed it to realize
strong economic growth, a Van Eck
representative noted.
New IndexIQ ETF
Tracks Ag Small-Caps
IndexIQ rolled out a global agribusiness
ETF on March 22 designed to tap into
rising food prices and the alternative energy
story through a small-cap security.
The IQ Global Agribusiness Small
Cap ETF (NYSE Arca: CROP) joins Van
Eck’s $3.8 billion, large-cap-focused
Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF (NYSE
Arca: MOO). CROP costs 0.75 percent,
while MOO costs 0.56 percent.
IndexIQ said the two funds have little
overlap, with CROP’s portfolio focused on
smaller companies in crop production,
supplies and logistics, while MOO’s owns
larger companies that are in the agricultural
chemicals and operations sectors.
CROP caps each sector allocation at
25 percent of the portfolio. It owns securities
from some 14 countries to maximize
diversification. Its top holdings
at launch included Canada’s Viterra,
the U.S.’ Tractor Supply, Netherlandsbased
Nutreco, Spain’s Ebro Foods and
Brazil’s Cosan.
WisdomTree Debuts
Asian Bond ETF
WisdomTree Investments debuted an
actively managed Asia ex-Japan bond
fund denominated in local currency in
mid-March.
The WisdomTree Asia Local Debt
Fund (NYSE Arca: ALD) will cast a wide
net, covering China, Hong Kong, India,
Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Philippines,
Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand,
Australia and New Zealand. The fund
categorically excludes Japan, while Vietnam’s
poor fundamentals mean that it
didn’t make the cut for inclusion.
ALD doesn’t use a benchmark;
rather, its constituents are chosen by a
WisdomTree investment committee focused
on a number of parameters in a
given country, including liquidity, debtto-GDP
ratio, foreign reserves, inflation
and unemployment.
ALD has an expense ratio of 0.55
percent.
Schwab Plans To
Use ETFs In 401(k)s
Charles Schwab plans to lower 401(k) costs
by steering assets, for the first time, toward
lower-priced passive index funds and ETFs,
beginning this year. Should Schwab’s plan
gain traction, it could seriously upset the
world of defined-contribution retirement
plans that’s dominated by actively managed
mutual funds.
The San Francisco-based company,
which has a long-standing reputation as a
discount broker and purveyor of low-cost
funds, plans to begin rolling out the index
mutual fund piece of its plan later this year,
while the ETF portion will come to market
sometime in 2012, a Schwab representative
said. The company already runs about
$200 billion in retirement assets.
Schwab’s push is based on a study it
published in September 2010 called “The
New Rules of Engagement for 401(k)
Success” that found that high costs and a
lack of investor education have together
conspired to limit the amount people
save for their retirements, according to
the Schwab representative.
EGPT Creations Resume
Van Eck Global resumed creations of its
Market Vectors Egypt Index ETF (NYSE
Arca: EGPT) after the Egyptian exchange
reopened on March 23. The New Yorkbased
company halted creations in late
January amid turmoil in the North African
country that led to the closure of
the Egyptian Stock Exchange.
The firm originally halted creations
on EGPT on Jan. 31, during the unrest
that hobbled daily life in Egypt and
ultimately led to the end of President
Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule there.
Throughout the seven-week episode,
redemptions were still possible, Van
Eck stressed in its prepared statement.
At the close on March 22, EGPT was
trading at a 12.8 percent premium to
its net asset value, or NAV, according to
data compiled by IndexUniverse.
The Q’s Lose A ‘Q’
Invesco PowerShares changed the ticker
symbol on its popular Nasdaq-100 ETF,
the PowerShares QQQ Trust (Nasdaq
GM: QQQ) to “QQQ” from “QQQQ” so
that the fund’s name matches its ticker.
The change became effective on
March 23, 2011. PowerShares emphasized
in a prepared statement that everything
else about the funds would
remain exactly the same, including its
listing on the Nasdaq exchange.
The “Q’s,” as it is called by ETF industry
insiders, had turnover of almost $1.052
trillion in all of 2010, making it the thirdmost-liquid
fund in the U.S. ETF universe
after the large-cap SPDR S&P 500 ETF
(NYSE Arca: SPY) and the small-cap iShares
Russell 2000 Index Fund (NYSE Arca:
IWM), according to data compiled by IndexUniverse.
It had assets of nearly $23
billion when the change took effect.
4 ETFR • May 2011