Nine international industry sector exchange-traded funds or ETFs were launched by BlackRock (BLK) today. The new exchange traded funds are linked to MSCI All Country World ex-US sector indexes.
This means that these ETF funds are purely global in focus and exclude all U.S. stocks from components. Also, as an all-country fund these ETFs cherry pick the best stocks in a sector regardless of the country – from BRIC investments in Brazil and China to less popular markets like Spain or Israel.
By design, the new iShares sector ETFs have equity exposure to both developed and emerging markets.
The new funds are:
- iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Consumer Discretionary Sector Index Fund (AXDI)
- iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Consumer Staples Sector Index Fund (AXSL)
- iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Energy Sector Index Fund (AXEN)
- iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Health Care Sector Index Fund (AXHE)
- iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Industrials Sector Index Fund (AXID)
- iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Information Technology Sector Index Fund (AXIT)
- iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Materials Sector Index Fund (AXMT)
- iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Telecommunication Services Sector Index Fund (AXTE)
- iShares MSCI ACWI ex US Utilities Sector Index Fund (AXUT)
“We are expanding our international sector offering with the iShares MSCI ACWI ex-US sector funds because as financial advisors increasingly fine tune their clients’ international exposure and institutional investors become more tactical internationally, we can make it easier for them to access the markets more efficiently,” said Noel Archard, Head of iShares Product Research and Development at BlackRock.
According to the prospectus, the new sector ETFs have annual expense ratios of 0.48%.
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