Wikinvest Wire

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

WisdomTree A GoGo

WisdomTree filed for another 31 ETFs (hat tip Tom Lydon and a nod to Richard Kang) and some of them appear to be very interesting, at first glance and so far a glance is all we have.

  • WisdomTree Communications Sector Funds
  • WisdomTree Financial Sector Fund
  • WisdomTree REIT Sector Fund
  • WisdomTree Utilities Sector Fund
  • WisdomTree International Real Estate Sector Fund
  • WisdomTree Total Earnings Fund
  • WisdomTree Large Cap Sector Fund
  • WisdomTree Midcap Earnings Fund
  • WisdomTree Smallcap Earnings Fund
  • WisdomTree Earnings Top100 Fund
  • WisdomTree Low P/E Fund
  • WisdomTree Asia Emerging Markets Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree Asia Emerging Markets High-Yielding Equity Fund
  • WisdomTree Emerging Markets Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree Emerging Markets High-Yielding Equity Fund
  • WisdomTree Emerging Markets Dividend Top 100 Fund
  • WisdomTree Latin America Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree Australia Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree Canada Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree China Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree France Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree Germany Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree Hong Kong Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree India Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree Malaysia Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree South Africa Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree Singapore Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree South Korea Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree Taiwan Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree United Kingdom Total Dividend Fund
  • WisdomTree United Kingdom High-Yielding Equity Fund
Some of the country funds could be very interesting. In most countries there are only a few ADRs to trade compared to what is at home in the local market. For example according to ADR.com there are no NYSE ADRs for Malaysia. iShares Malaysia (EWM) yields 3.43%. It seems to me that there are probably some high yielding stocks in Malaysia that might make WisdomTree's dividend fund at least worth looking at. Malaysia, after all, has a current account surplus, low interest rates and a strong currency. All good stuff from a top down perspective. Malaysia may or may not be a country you want to own, I don't know if I want to own it either but there are some good bones and the WisdomTree Fund could be better than EWM or the Malaysia Fund (MF).

Ditto Singapore.

Obviously I am going to be interested in the Australia fund; hopefully it is not too heavy in Telstra (TLS). The three emerging market funds could be strong competitors for EEM and ADRE (client and personal holding). I will be curious to see if the sector funds (which I presume are domestic) bring anything new. They appear to not be dividend weighted but weighted with some other fundamental criteria. If true this is new for them, if successful this could open other doors for them.

China and India could be popular and they also pave the way, maybe, for Russia, Brazil and maybe a few more destinations not yet covered.

We all have to stay tuned.
Posted by Roger Nusbaum at 6:25 AM

2 comments:

Richard Kang said...

Thanks for the "nod", Roger.

Question: Despite WisdomTree's heavy assault of fund offerings, do you have any thoughts as to the firm's strategy of relying on dividends as opposed to PowerShares' FTSE-RAFI based ETFs as the basis for "fundamental indexation". The RA is for Research Affiliates (headed by Rob Arnott) and their methodology uses 4 factors: book value, income, sales and dividends. Both forms of FI would have done worse than the market cap weighted indices during the bull run of the late 90's but outpeformed during the demise thereafter. That's a good argument for holding FI based holdings in conjunction with low cost market cap weighted ETFs. I only wonder what you think of WisdomTree's offerings compared to comparable funds managed using Research Affiliates methodology. Any thoughts on the expansion of fundamental indexation in the ETF industry overall?

1:16 PM
Roger Nusbaum said...

lotta meat on this bone, Richard.

I'll have a post up by Wednesday morning to try to answer.

1:23 PM

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