ISRA’s index tracks “Israeli companies with primary listings in U.S. or London, and Israel-linked companies. With that more liberal criteria, ISRA tracks 115 stocks, far more than the 52 tracked by EIS,” reports Eric Balchunas for Bloomberg.
As Balchunas notes, there have been occasions when ISRA’s deeper bench has stoked out-performance of EIS. For example, early adopters of ISRA have been treated to a 22% gain by the ETF since it debuted in late June 2013. EIS is up 17.2% over the same period.
Although ISRA has to contend with geopolitical volatility and the specter of recession in Europe, there are catalysts that could drive the ETF higher. As BlueStar notes, a stronger U.S. dollar should benefit Israeli health care, materials and technology names. Those sectors combine for two-thirds of ISRA’s weight.
Market Vectors Israel ETF
