We have spent a considerable amount of time covering the resurgence in Emerging Markets based equities, particularly led by relative strength in Brazil and Latin America in general, and today we switch the channel to a related segment, that of Frontier Markets.
The key ETF in the segment, FM (iShares MSCI Frontier 100 Index, Expense Ratio 0.79%) is up >11% just year to date, despite pulling back in the past two weeks from its all-time high on rather heavy trading volume in the
product.
This fund debuted in September of 2012, and has gathered north of $800 million in this time period, bringing its average daily volume up to about 325,000 shares traded daily.
FM has firmly supplanted FRN (Guggenheim Frontier Markets ETF, Expense Ratio 0.65%) as the benchmark leader in the space, as the former only has $86 million in assets under management at the moment, clearly having seen assets vacate to FM and perhaps other competitors over time.
Interestingly, EMFM (Global X Next Emerging & Frontier ETF, Expense Ratio 0.58%) which debuted roughly seven months ago, already has about double the AUM in FRN ($155 million) and has been a recipient of new flows YTD as has FM (+313million).
Countries that are well represented in these Frontier Market based ETFs that investors seem to be benefitting from having exposure to formerly difficult to access equity markets like Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Nigeria, Argentina, Pakistan, Kenya, and others.
iShares MSCI Frontier 100 ETF
For more information on Street One ETF research and ETF trade execution/liquidity services, contact Paul Weisbruch at pweisbruch@streetonefinancial.com.
Street One Financial is an educational/research firm utilizing the Broker Dealer services of Precision Securities, a FINRA registered Broker/Dealer.