We have seen some pretty aggressive bottom fishing in broad based International based EFA (iShares MSCI EAFE, Expense Ratio 0.34%) in recent sessions on absolutely huge volume for the ETF, as well as an impressive reversal off of the lows.
Last Thursday, the veteran ETF which debuted back in 2001 briefly traded with a $58 handle before reversing sharply to where it is today, $60.70. Top country exposures to EFA are in the U.K. >21% of the portfolio followed by Japan (>20%), France (>9.7%), Switzerland (>9%) among others.
In addition to heavy trading volume in the underlying, the November 62 calls have been active as well, which realistically, are not terribly far out of the money at current levels and given EFA was above $62 just earlier this month. The fund has pulled in about $3 billion in new assets year to date, resulting in a net AUM amount currently of about $49.7 billion.
EFA maintains a hefty advantage in terms of its AUM and size (perhaps due to listed options trading interest and liquidity in the “Foreign Large Cap Equity” space, as the second largest fund there VEA (Vanguard Europe Pacific, Expense Ratio 0.09%) “only” has about $21 billion in AUM. IEFA (iShares Core MSCI EAFE, Expense Ratio 0.14%) should also be noted here as a fast mover, having raised greater than $2.5 billion since its late 2012
inception amid heavy competition in the space.