Making its debut on 02/22/2008, smart beta exchange traded fund WisdomTree India Earnings ETF (EPI) provides investors broad exposure to the Asia-Pacific (Emerging) ETFs category of the market.
What Are Smart Beta ETFs?
For a long time now, the ETF industry has been flooded with products based on market capitalization weighted indexes, which are designed to represent the broader market or a particular market segment.
Market cap weighted indexes offer a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns, and are a good option for investors who believe in market efficiency.
However, some investors believe in the possibility of beating the market through exceptional stock selection, and choose a different type of fund that tracks non-cap weighted strategies: smart beta.
Based on specific fundamental characteristics, or a combination of such, these indexes attempt to pick stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance.
The smart beta space gives investors many different choices, from equal-weighting, one of the simplest strategies, to more complicated ones like fundamental and volatility/momentum based weighting. However, not all of these methodologies have been able to deliver remarkable returns.
Fund Sponsor & Index
EPI is managed by Wisdomtree, and this fund has amassed over $851.16 million, which makes it one of the larger ETFs in the Asia-Pacific (Emerging) ETFs. EPI, before fees and expenses, seeks to match the performance of the WisdomTree India Earnings Index.
The WisdomTree India Earnings Index is a fundamentally weighted index that measures the performance of companies incorporated and traded in India that are profitable and that are eligible to be purchased by foreign investors as of the index measurement date. Weighted Index based on their earnings in their fiscal year prior to the Index measurement date adjusted for foreign investors.
Cost & Other Expenses
Since cheaper funds tend to produce better results than more expensive funds, assuming all other factors remain equal, it is important for investors to pay attention to an ETF's expense ratio.
With one of the most expensive products in the space, this ETF has annual operating expenses of 0.84%.
It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 1.45%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure which minimizes single stock risk, it is still important to look into a fund's holdings before investing. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.