One year after the market hit its lows, Claymore Securities, often best known as a provider of themed exchange traded funds (ETFs), is taking a different approach with three new offerings that track broad U.S. equities.
Claymore’s three new funds are:
- Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index (NYSEArca: WFVK): Tracks the Wilshire 5000, the only index that holds every single stock trading in the United States today. The expense ratio is 0.12%.
- Wilshire 4500 Completion Index (NYSEArca: WXSP): For investors who already have access to the S&P 500, this ETF gives exposure to the remainder of the market. The expense ratio is 0.18%.
- Wilshire U.S. Real Estate Investment Trust (NYSEArca: WREI): Tracks the Wilshire U.S. Real Estate Investment Rust Index, which launched in 1991. It provides pure exposure to the REIT marketplace and excludes other types of real estate securities. The expense ratio is 0.32%. [Homebuilders Surge Ahead.]
William Belden, Claymore’s managing director, says these new offerings help take Claymore’s product line in a new direction and expands on where the provider has already been. “We’re happy with what we’ve done, and we’ll continue to be opportunitistic,” but having more core offerings will help round out the product line and further appeal to advisors.
The indexes on which the ETFs are based are being called “pure and complete” – that is, indexes built to give pure exposure to various markets without artificial parameters in place.
Robert Waid, Wilshire’s managing director, said he sometimes refers to the Wilshire 5000 as a “third-generation” market index, following the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P500. The index was born in 1974 after its creators looked at the S&P 500 and determined that a better measure of the market was needed.
To give a sense of how the technology has changed, in 1974 it took about 40 minutes to calculate the values of the securities in the index; today, it’s done in mere seconds.