Monday, November 05, 2007

Deceptive ETF's

From SeekingAlpha; something to keep in mind is their synopsis of the Q's and other ETF's. Particularly with the weighting methodology - The Q's do not mirror the tech sector. "Only 65% of the fund is devoted to technology, with the rest tied up in healthcare, consumer discretionary and more." Also, "Microsoft (MSFT) is twice as large a company as Apple (AAPL) ($346 billion vs. $164 billion), but Apple has twice the weight of Microsoft in the index (12.3% vs. 6.5%). The fund is also very concentrated in its largest holdings, with 46% of the fund in the top 10 holdings."
Using EPP to get exposure in the Asian markets. However, "As of September 30, 65.4% of the fund was in Australian stocks, with a further 1.5% in New Zealand. Only one-third of the fund was in what most of us consider Asia: 20.9% in Hong Kong and 11.3% in Singapore." Perhaps a better ETF to gain exposure in Asia is their recommendation of GMF.
The Emerging Europe ETF GUR; "As of September 30, the fund had a 58% weight in Russia, compared with 13.5% in Poland, 12.6% in Turkey, 7% in Hungary and 5% in the Czech Republic. Missing entirely are Poland, the fast-growing Baltic states like Finland and Estonia, and places like Austria, Croatia and Bulgaria."
So, knowing the weighting and coverage of these ETFs perhaps one can position their hedges/investments with more concise accuracy.

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