Global / International Exchange Traded Funds - October 11, 2008
Which county's Stock Market has the best value and what is the ETF symbol to
invest in that county?
After the 2008 Market Crash, do bargains abound?
This article provides a list of selected Global Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). It
also provides the available fundaments (P/E ratio and dividend yield, and price to book
value ratio) and the Management
Expense Ratio (MER) of each ETF. The intention is too provide a broad list of ETS
covering major countries. This list is not intended to cover various
industry segments but rather to cover counties.
Click here, for an analysis of Canadian
ETFs and Market segments.
With this information, investors can make a judgment as to the desirability
of various Country ETFs and provides the trading symbol under which each can be
purchased. (Or sold short for that matter).
While it can be very difficult to interpret whether a particular P/E ratio is
attractive or not, it is useful to be aware of these ratios. Note that most of
the indexes are "capped" which means that the contribution of any one company to
the index is capped or limited to a certain level. In some cases
the P/E ratios may not be the raw trailing P/Es but may be massaged to remove
extraordinary items. ishares has told us they "massage" the P/E for the S&P 500
index and they may do that for all of them. Also these P/E ratios will soon be out of date as the
market moves. Still they offer an indication of valuation.
In buying or selling any of these ETFs be cautious about the trading volume
and the bid/ask spread. Higher volume ETFs are preferred, all else being equal.
If you are interested in Global ETFs that trade in the U.S. an excellent
source of information is www.ishares.com I
have taken much of the information below from
www.ishares.com. You can go there for updated P/E information and to see the
individual companies within each index.
In buying any of these, be careful to double check the trading symbol with
other sources. I believe the symbols below are correct, but please double check.
A wrong symbol could lead to to the wrong investment.