Geoffrey Lordi

A New Eastern Europe ETF from iShares

Thanks for the notice, Patrick.

Appreciate the commentary, Paul.

I think I'm forced to agree with you, Alan.

GUR and ESR are so similar as to make them non-differentiable. RSX is the pure play there, and dominant. Sure, there are slight differences in composition, cost, and focus. But not enough to make a difference in terms of performance correlations. Even a popular CEF, Morgan Stanley's "RNE", is barely dissimilar enough to make a difference (<1% in Kazakhstan is meaningless).

For those who are interested, the only fund I found after a quick review that gets folks less than 60% in Russia is the Central Europe & Russia fund (CEE). Rus still represents ~59%, but at least there's ~13% in Poland, and roughly 10% each in the Czech Republic and Turkey. (Total fees are as follows: RNE=2.16% (ouch!); CEE= 1.1%.)

At one point, I think WisdomTree's product registration included several EE currencies. Those might have been a way in that wasn't equity-based but those submissions have yet to materialize. CurrencyShares offers a Russian currency tracker, XRU, as many know.