Today we revisit an actively managed Globally-focused ETF that we have profiled in the past, ACCU (AdvisorShares Accuvest Global Opportunities ETF, Expense Ratio 1.25%).
According to fund literature, the management team at Accuvest Global Advisors utilizes a four step investment process in its global equity approach, which ranks individual countries (and the corresponding country specific ETFs) based on fundamentals such as economic growth and earnings, as well as momentum, risk, and valuation measures.
Fund literature states that approximately forty factors are examined on the whole, and then the countries are ranked based on relative attractiveness, ending with positions being taken in the top five or six countries that remain. Instead of using individually listed global equities, ACCU takes an ETF “fund of funds” approach by investing in other ETFs.
Currently, the largest positions are in the U.S., via a 19.97% weighting in IVV (iShares Core S&P 500, Expense Ratio 0.07%) and a 19.61% weighting in MCHI (iShares MSCI China, Expense Ratio 0.61%), followed by positions EIS (iShares MSCI Israel, Expense Ratio 0.59%), EWY (iShares MSCI South Korea, Expense Ratio 0.59%), INDY (iShares S&P India Nifty Fifty, Expense Ratio 0.93%), EWP (iShares MSCI Spain, Expense Ratio 0.52%), and EWI (iShares MSCI Italy, Expense Ratio 0.51%).
The “Global Equity” category in ETFs is the home of some rather large and very popular passive index funds, like VEU (Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-U.S., Expense Ratio 0.15%) and ACWI (iShares MSCI ACWI, Expense Ratio 0.35%) for example, which have $12.1 billion and $5.7 billion apiece in assets under management.
ACCU only currently has about $20 million in AUM, but then again the fund only celebrates its three year anniversary since inception in January of next year.