By Carl Delfeld of Chartwell ETF and Chartwell Partners
The new series of ten international sector SPDR ETFs are positioned to compete with WisdomTrees line of dividend-weighted sector ETFs. It looks like these ETFs are based on the Citigroup/S&P global sector indexes with the U.S. companies stripped out.
Here is a list of the new SPDR ETFs:
SPDR S&P International Consumer Discretionary Sector ETF [IPD]
SPDR S&P International Consumer Staples Sector ETF [IPS]
SPDR S&P International Energy Sector ETF [IPW]
SPDR S&P International Financial Sector ETF [IPF]
SPDR S&P International Health Care Sector ETF [IRY]
SPDR S&P International Industrial Sector ETF [IPN]
SPDR S&P International Materials Sector ETF [IRV]
SPDR S&P International Technology Sector ETF [IPK]
SPDR S&P International Telecommunications Sector ETF [IST]
SPDR S&P International Utilities Sector ETF [IPU]
It is interesting to look inside some of these ETFs and look at the country weightings.
Energy (IPW)
28% United Kingdom
25% Canada
11% France
9% Italy
8% Norway
Top 5 countries=81%
Financials (IPF)
14% Japan
12% United Kingdom
9% Canada
7% France
7% Australia
Top five countries= 50%
Materials (IRV)
18% United Kingdom
15% Japan
14% Australia
13% Canada
11% Germany
Top five countries=70%
You can see that 5-6 countries dominate the holdings of these ETFs since they are market cap based similar to the EFA index which has 65% exposure to Japan, UK, Germany and France. If you are looking for significant exposure to emerging markets, these ETFs won't get the job done. I would love to see these sector ETFs with countries equally weighted.
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