Hi, Thanks for your ongoing excellent service. Could you suggest particular Euro-denominated EFTs for tracking European indices or the Euro Stoxx 50? And suggestions on particular EFTs for tracking indices in India and China. I'd appreciate your thoughts how you approach selecting/assessing/ comparing EFTs. Many thanks.

Eoin Treacy's view

Thank you for this question which I suspect will be of interest to other subscribers. ETFs in the classic sense represent a powerful innovation in the financial sector by offering consumers access to themes, sectors and country indices that were once only open to well-heeled institutional investors. The low fee structure and cheap cost of listing means that the business case for launching ETFs depends on attracting assets. As a result the number of products on offer has proliferated but liquidity is often a consideration. Just as with any investment, due diligence is required and this is even more important with non-standard or leveraged products. 

Within the Funds section of the Chart Library we have categorised each fund by Domicile, Currency, Geographic Focus, Type, Objective and Theme. We have 740 ETFs which is obviously not complete considering how quickly the sector is expanding. The list of funds in the Library has grown organically over the last decade as subscribers have requested additions. The result is that the majority of instruments are denominated in the currencies of the countries where our subscribers are based. For a Euro investor I would suggest looking at the 70 Euro denominated funds. By clicking through you will see just how much the Euro’s weakness has flattered the performance of global indices. 

As the largest Euro domiciled fund provider Lyxor probably has the most complete range of Euro denominated ETFs. However, it does not appear to have an English language site for Euro denominate funds so I performed a search on Bloomberg to find a complete list. I removed funds with less than $20 million under management and those with average 30 day volume of less than 1000 shares. There are 387 results.