Market Vectors added a complement to its existing China A-shares exchange traded fund, the Market Vectors ChinaAMC A-Share ETF (NYSEArca: PEK), with Thursday’s launch of the Market Vectors ChinaAMC SME-ChiNext ETF (NYSEArca: CNXT).
The new tracks the SME-ChiNext 100 (SZ399611), which provides exposure to the 100 most liquid mid- and small-cap stocks that trade on the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Board and the ChiNext Board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE), according to a statement issued by Market Vectors.
The SME Board is viewed as China’s NASDAQ, notes Market Vectors. To that end, CNXT’s largest sector allocation is 23% to technology followed by 20.3% to consumer discretionary. Those are the two largest sector weights in the PowerShares QQQ (NasdaqGM: QQQ), the NASDAQ-100 tracking ETF.
Other double-digit sector weights include 17.1% to industrials and 10.1% to health care. No stock accounts for more than 3.38% of the new ETF’s weight, according to Market Vectors data.
As do other recently launched A-shares ETFs, CNXT provides direct, physical access to stocks listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen. China limits foreign investors’ access to A-shares to Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors and Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors. However, the world’s second-largest economy is looking to increase foreign investment. [A-Shares ETF Gets Physical]
“ChinaAMC is currently China’s largest asset manager in terms of fund assets under management and will serve as sub-advisor to CNXT using a Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (RQFII) quota that it has received to invest in China A-shares,” said Market Vectors in the statement.
CNXT has 94 holdings and charges 0.68% per year.
Market Vectors added that at the start of 2014, SMEs in China were contributing 60% of the country’s GDP, 80% of its employment, and 74% of its technological innovation, according to the World Trade Organization.
CNXT has a rival in the form of the db X-trackers Harvest CSI 500 China A-Shares Small Cap Fund (NYSEArca: ASHS), which debuted two months ago. ASHS tracks the CSI 500 Index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed small-caps. That ETF has about $5.5 million in assets under management. [New ETF for A-Shares Small-Caps]
CNXT Sector Weights
Graph Courtesy: Market Vectors
ETF Trends editorial team contributed to this post. Tom Lydon’s clients own shares of QQQ.