State Street Global Advisors expanded its line of currency hedged exchange traded funds with two new products that capture high-yield international companies.
On Tuesday, SSgA launched the SPDR MSCI International Real Estate Currency Hedged ETF (NYSEArca: HREX) and the SPDR S&P International Dividend Currency Hedged ETF (NYSEArca: HDWX), according to a press release. Both new ETFs come with a 0.48% expense ratio.
“Recent flow trends have highlighted continued investor interest in currency hedged ETFs to help manage currency volatility,” James Ross, executive vice president and global head of SPDR Exchange Traded Funds at State Street Global Advisors, said in the press release.
According to ETFGI, global currency-hedged ETFs have seen assets surge 83% to $118.3 billion in the year ended July, with WisdomTree attracting the lion’s share of assets at $41.6 billion, compared to $26.0 billion for iShares and $22.5 billion for Deutsche’s db x-trackers. [Currency War Concerns & The Rise of Currency-Hedged ETFs]
Currency-hedged ETF growth is predominately coming out of the U.S. where assets have jumped 174% in the year ended July from $26.9 billion at the end of last year.
HREX and HDWX will cover international stocks with exceptional dividends. Specifically, HDWX, which acts as the hedged version of the SPDR S&P International Dividend ETF (NYSEArca: DWX), follows a dividend-weighted index of the 100 highest yielding non-U.S. stocks – DWX shows a 5.64% 12-month yield.
Additionally, HREX will focus on non-U.S. companies from developed markets that have generated 75% or more of their revenue from real-estate-related businesses. State Street, though, does not offer a non-hedged ETF version of HREX.