New ETFs: Keeping Track Of International Exchanges

The markets might be off to a painful start this year, but new ETFs keep coming out. The latest out just this week is a whole suite of ETFs that track several key international exchanges.

They're called NETS, which stands for Northern Exchange Traded Shares, and they're from Northern Trust, one of the leaders in institutional index management.

Here's a list of the NETS Indexes:

	Price		Change	%Change
FRC		---

Hong Kong: Hang Seng
Japan: Topix
France: CAC40
UK: FTSE 100
Germany: DAX
Australia: S&P/ASA

They aren't the first ones to have indices built around countries--iShares has a whole suite of them already, but they are country indices, and they don't necessarily track the specific indices listed here. Also, these ETFs can be used as an arbitrage because there are futures tied to these indices.

Bottom line: there's plenty of room for more international-flavored ETFs, particularly if they expand into 401(k)s, which should be happening (hopefully) much more regularly in the next few years. More information here: netsetfs.com.

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