A country that is located in the Eurozone geographically, but not part of the European Union that somehow evades attention from most portfolio managers is Norway.
Two ETFs that focus specifically on Norwegian equity index exposure are in existence, and cumulatively have attracted about $46 million since inception. Global X FTSE Norway 30 (NYSEArca: NORW), as its name suggests, tracks a FTSE index that intends to be a measure of Norway’s stock market. The fund debuted in November of 2011.
BlackRock launched iShares MSCI Norway Capped Investable Market (BATS: ENOR) at the end of January of this year, so the fund is still rather new to the marketplace.
Tracking the MSCI Norway IMI 25/50 Index, the ETF is also designed to give the investor broad based exposure to the equity market in Norway.
Head to head, the performance of both funds since’s ENOR’s inception on January 24 of this year are very close, with NORW losing 6.51% year to date and ENOR down 6.67%.
This can be compared to the MSCI Europe Index which is down 9.08% year to date as Norway has only a token weighting in this index.