The largest Europe focused equity ETF in the landscape, VGK (Vanguard FTSE Europe, Expense Ratio 0.12%) has pulled in more than $500 million in fresh new assets in the last few sessions, adding to its already impressive base of $11.9 billion in AUM.
Related ETF, FEZ (SPDR Euro STOXX 50, Expense Ratio 0.29%) has also been rather active, reeling in more than $100 million in its own right. FEZ is the fourth largest ETF in the European Equity category, with $4.2 billion in assets under management.
Europe is off more than 1% this morning in early trade so we will see if bids continue to appear out there given this weakness.
Other ETFs to note here in the upper echelon of the category in terms of size are EZU (iShares MSCI EMU Index, Expense Ratio 0.52%), IEV (iShares S&P Europe 350 Index, Expense Ratio 0.60%), and FEEU (Barclays EETN+ FI Enhanced Europe 50 ETN, Expense Ratio 0.29%) which has grown into a $983 million fund in a short amount of time (inception 5/2013).
The space has been a boon for ETF providers in terms of attracting interest as well as assets from investment managers, either with broad based diversified Developed Europe products like those listed above, or in the cases of single country ETF plays such as EWG (iShares MSCI Germany, Expense Ratio 0.51%), EWU (iShares MSCI UK, Expense Ratio 0.52%), EWL (iShares MSCI Switzerland, Expense Ratio 0.52%), EWI (iShares MSCI Italy, Expense Ratio 0.51%), EWP (iShares MSCI Spain, Expense Ratio 0.52%), EWQ (iShares MSCI France, Expense Ratio 0.52%), EWD (iShares MSCI Sweden, Expense Ratio 0.51%), EWN (iShares MSCI Netherlands, Expense Ratio 0.52%), which have amassed anywhere from $5.4 billion in AUM (EWG) down to $103 million in the case of EWO.
Thirty nine ETPs currently fall within the category including investment options that concentrate on single country indexes like some of the aforementioned funds, small-cap focused funds, as well as “Hedged Equity” funds such as HEDJ (WisdomTree International Hedged Equity, Expense Ratio 0.58%).