Barclay's New ETFs

[HenryTo]

This is the first time a retail investor can get exposure to Chile's stock market via a non closed-end fund.
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Investor's Business Daily
Barclays Launches ETFs For Foreign Markets
Thursday November 15, 6:12 pm ET
Jesse Emspak


Barclays Global Investors is launching a set of eight new international exchange traded funds, adding to the existing field of regional and country-specific offerings.

Four of the new ETFs will track real estate, focusing on global markets (ex U.S.), Asia, Europe and North America.

Another, the iShares FTSE Developed Small Cap ex North America Index Fund will track small-cap companies outside the U.S.

The real estate and small-cap ETFs are all linked to the FTSE and will trade on the Nasdaq, the first time iShares ETFs have traded on that exchange, according to BGI.

The last three ETFs are the iShares S&P Asia 50 Index , iShares MSCI BRIC Index Fund and iShares MSCI Chile Index FundECH.

Those ETFs will trade on the NYSE.

Foreign ETFs Still Hot

IShares already offers ETFs tracking markets in several countries.

The best performer year to date has been iShares FTSE/Xinhua (NYSE:FXI - News), up 91.7%.

Over the same period, the PowerShares Golden Dragon Halter USX China Portfolio (AMEX:PGJ - News) has also brought in impressive returns, picking up 86.6%.

Of the top five year-to-date performers, four are emerging market plays. Claymore BNY/BRIC (AMEX:EEB - News) was up 82.5% and iShares MSCI Brazil (NYSE:EWZ - News) was up 82.1%.

China has been the star for many emerging-market investors, but Latin America also has showed strong growth, driven mostly by gains in Brazil.

Global real estate has also been a hot topic for investors. As prospects for real estate in the U.S. have looked grim in the residential sector, a number of firms have turned to global markets. But that has usually been the purview of closed-end funds.

Real Estate ETF

State Street Global Advisors introduced the first international real estate ETF, streetTRACKS DJ Wilshire International Real Estate ETF (AMEX:RWX - News), in December last year.

Unlike many closed-end funds, which tend to contain real estate investment trusts, the ETF tracks stocks.

Year to date, the streetTRACKS ETF has lost 4.85%.

While down for the year, it's done better than SPDR S&P Homebuilders (AMEX:XHB - News), which is off 39.9%.

ETFs continue to grow in both assets and the number rolled out.

According to data from State Street, at the end of October, 586 ETFs with assets totaling approximately $584 billion were managed by 18 ETF managers. That's up from $554 billion in September.

Gary Gordon, president of Pacific Park Financial, a California financial adviser, says investors should look at the volume ETFs trade at and be aware of the securities they track.

About 75,000 shares daily is a good rule of thumb, he says.

[rffrydr]

The "roll yield":

http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=IFN:FXI&p=D&b=5&g=0&id=p81654209253
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[nodoodahs]

ECH was the only one that caught my eye. 10,200 shares on Friday the 16th of November, first day trading.
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I haven’t seen a beatin’ like that since somebody stuck a banana in my pants and turned a monkey loose.

[HenryTo]

Bill,

I think ECH has started trading already, although volume has been dismal so far. I haven't checked out the other ones mentioned in the article.

Best,
Henry

[nodoodahs]

Is this just an announcement of the filing? If so, do we have an idea of when they will start trading?
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I haven’t seen a beatin’ like that since somebody stuck a banana in my pants and turned a monkey loose.