New ETF Dow Jones EPAC Select Dividend Index Fund (IDV): Worth a Gander

Roger Nusbaum submits: I saw over on ETF Trends that iShares has a new dividend ETF [Dow Jones EPAC Select Dividend Index Fund (IDV) that owns foreign stocks -- well that is always worth a gander.

The underlying index is something called the EPAC Dividend Index. The way Tom referred to it I feel like it something I should have heard of, but I haven't.

It kind of looks like a WisdomTree fund in that it is heaviest in Australia at 36%, then UK 31%, followed by several countries with single digit weightings. It is heaviest, sector-wise, in financials at 42%, with a lot of the big foreign banks in the top ten. Even New Zealand Telecom (NZT), a former client holding, is in the top ten with a 2.03% weight -- the entire NZ exposure for the fund by the way.

Kind of unique is that Greece has a 3.09% weight.

The backtest blew away the S&P 500 and the EAFE at every turn, but I was not able to find a Sharpe ratio or any charts to get a feel for how volatile it might be. I suspect its not that volatile, but I don't know for sure.

Dow Jones EPAC Select Dividend Index Chart

Comments

[Josh Stern:]

I googled this explanation for the index: www.etftrends.com/2007...

2007 Jun 18 05:22 PM