This is the top ten. There are only ETFs for Hong Kong, Singapore, UK and Australia. According to the article, Mr. Marotta also owns ETFs for Austria, Sweden, Canada, Germany, EFA, Netherlands and Switzerland to round out the freedom portfolio.
The article states that Mr. Marotta does not own countries that don't have ETFs; Luxembourg, Estonia, Ireland, New Zealand and Denmark.
I am not that concerned with the portfolio itself but to tie in with what I have been talking about a lot this week; explore other products to see if it is possible to get closer to the intended effect. For example, a single stock adverse investor might be able to capture Ireland with the Irish Investment Fund (IRL), click here and decide for yourself.
For Denmark there is no CEF or ETF but there are two NYSE listed ADRs. Would owning either of them allow an investor to capture Denmark? Click here and, again, draw your own conclusion. Click here for New Zealand.
This chart show the Luxembourg Exchange compared to the two NYSE listed ADRs. Does either seem to correlate to the market? Maybe.There is still no easy way to for US investors to own Iceland or Estonia.
The point of this is not that you should buy ESF or TLD to round out Mr. Marotta's portfolio but that when you read unique idea's like this you should explore different alternatives. The Middleton article shares some process and this post tries to expand the concept a little.
For disclosure, clients and I own EWA and EWO.
5 comments:
There are other Danish ADRs besides the two listed on the NYSE.
I found this listing of all of them that seem to be available:
Danske Bank (DNSKY), Novo-Nordisk (NVO), TeleDanmark (TLD), H Lunbeck A/S (HLUKY), EuroTrust A/S (EURO).
Forgive my ignorance, but is there any reason why you can't buy stocks/ETFs actually listed abroad? There is a small range of NZ ETFs actually listed in NZ. You'll find some info at www.smartshares.nzx.com
Londoner asks a good question. What I always say is it is not easy to access certain markets. For example to buy the ICEX 15 ETF (Iceland) US citizents have to open account at Kaupthing Bank through the mail, send a photocopy of you passport and so on.
A lot of ADRs trade on the pink sheets which makes them more difficult to track.
Other than Iceland, a US investor can probably get to most foreign stocks and ETFs but I think I will call schwab global and find out.
I'm not sure if any of this would be easier for someone across the pond.
To be fair I have not bought Iceland or NZ in portfolios I manage (own account or clients). But I don't think it's difficult on this side of the pond. Commissions for trades on overseas exchanges tend to be a little more costly, but there are not too many (if any) additional regulatory hoops to jump through, as long as we are dealing with recognised exchanges. My understanding is that this is true for private investors as well as for institutions - your call to Schwab sounds like a sensible move.
I owned NZSX, an ETF-like New Zealand fund, for a year. I was stunned to have a $700+ trade fee at each end through Schwab. I aksed about it, blah blah, that is just the way it is done.
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