State Street Rolls Out New Global ETF

The year is less than one month old, but it appears that we've already seen the birth of the ETF winner of the 2007 "Favorite Name" contest.

In case you weren't paying attention, January 17th, marked the birth of "CWI."

According to the SSGA/SPDR "birth announcement" for CWI, available at the new SSGA/SPDR Web site, here are the particulars of the new arrival:

Name: SPDR MSCI ACWI ex-US ETF (CWI)
Category: Best Acronym
Nickname: CWI
Expense Ratio: 35 bps
Ticker Symbol: CWI
CUSIP: 863308813
Inception Date: 01/10/2007
Benchmark: MSCI ACWI ex USA Index
Investment Mgr: SSgA Funds Management, Inc.
Distributor: State Street Global Markets, LLC

With "only" 5 vowels in its name (excluding "ETF"), it would seem that the rest of the industry will have to confine their struggles to the always cryptic, but specialized category - "Acronym/Fewest Vowels".

International Fray
All kidding aside, the new fund represents an important step forward for SSgA, which is in the process of rolling out a full array of international ETFs. The company has already rolled out two Japanese ETFs, one large-cap and one small-cap, and the large-cap fund (streetTracks Japan: JPP) has pulled in over $200 million in its first two months on the market. SSgA wants to eat into Barclays Global Investors's (BGI's) dominance of the international ETF space. They're not the only one, either: Vanguard has also recently launched a second all-world (ex-US) ETF, and other companies are looking to the fast-growing international ETF space as well.