In the weeks leading up to the June 5 European Central Bank meeting, Europe exchange traded funds were the talk of the town.
Critics have asserted ECB President Mario Draghi did not go far enough in efforts to weaken the euro and stimulate economic growth, but the central bank did unveil a negative deposit rate and a long-term refinancing operation of $544.5 billion.
Some Europe ETFs have given back small portions of their pre-ECB meeting gains, but overall, uptrends for these funds remain healthy and in tact, signs that some of the new entrants to the Europe ETF fray could soon make waves of their own. [Investors Flocked to These ETFs Ahead of ECB Meeting]
One of those new Europe offerings is the WisdomTree Europe Dividend Growth Fund (NYSEArca: EUDG). EUDG is just six weeks old, but in proof that some timing can affect new ETFs, the fund has pulled in over $12.7 million as investors have flocked to Europe ETFs.
EUDG tracks the WisdomTree Europe Dividend Growth Index, “a fundamentally weighted index that measures the performance of dividend-paying common stocks with growth characteristics selected from the WisdomTree DEFA Index,” according to WisdomTree.
An interesting element to EUDG is that unlike its family member, the wildly popular WisdomTree Europe Hedged Equity Fund (NYSEArca: HEDJ), the new ETF is not a hedge currency play. That is an important trait to remember due to EUDG’s country weights. [Good Timing for This New ETF]
Although 10 of the 15 countries represented in EUDG are Eurozone members, giving the new ETF some leverage to a weaker euro, the bulk of the fund’s country allocations are devoted to non-Eurozone members.