When I did the post on the best India based ETFs in US, I noted that there were several new ETFs since I last did the post and all of them were different from one another.
In this post I’m going to list down each of those ETFs along with a brief description of what their intended goal is. I have left the YTD returns as it is in the table just for reference.
| No. |
ETF |
YTD Return* |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | EGShares India consumer (INCO) |   50.25% | It is an ETF that invests in companies that belong to the consumer sector in India. It owns stocks of the Indxx India Consumer Index, a 30 stock free-float adjusted market capitalization index designed to measure the market performance of companies in the consumer sector of India. |
| 2 | iShares S&P India Nifty 50 Index Fund (INDY) |  29.47% | This ETF invests in the stocks that form Indian Nifty. The iShares S&P India Nifty 50 Index Fund seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the S&P CNX Nifty. |
| 3 | India Infrastructure ETF (INXX) | 29.11% | This ETF invests in the infrastructure sector companies in India. The EGShares India Infrastructure exchange-traded fund (ETF) seeks investment results that generally correspond performance of the Indxx India Infrastructure Index. The Indxx India Infrastructure Index is a free-float market capitalization weighted stock market index comprised of 30 leading companies that Indxx, LLC determines to be representative of India’s Infrastructure industries, as defined by the Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB). |
| 4 | EGShares India Small Cap (SCIN) | Â 28.89% | The EGShares India Small Cap Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) seeks investment results that generally correspond (before fees and expenses) to the price and yield performance of the Indxx India Small Cap Index. The index is a free-float market capitalization weighted stock market index comprised of a representative sample of 75 Indian companies that Indxx, LLC determines to be the representative of small market cap companies in India. |
| 5 | India Small Cap Index ETF (SCIF) | 26.5% | The Market Vectors® India Small-Cap Index ETF (SCIF) seeks to replicate as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Market Vectors India Small-Cap Index (MVSCIFTR), a rules-based, modified market capitalization-weighted, float-adjusted index intended to provide exposure to Indian small-cap companies. |
| 6 | iPath MSCI India Index ETNÂ (INP) | Â 26.89% | This is a Note and not a fund which means it doesn’t actually own the underlying assets and is like a debt instrument which pays you returns equivalent to the index.iPath MSCI India Index ETN is an exchange-traded note issued in the USA. The Notes will provide investors with a cash payment at the scheduled maturity or early redemption based on the performance of the underlying index, the MSCI India Total Return Index. |
| 7 | WisdomTree India Earnings Fund (EPI) | 23.93% | It is an ETF that invests in about 200 large Indian companies. |
| 8 | PowerShares India Portfolio (PIN) |  13.94% | The PowerShares India Portfolio (Fund) is based on the Indus India Index (Index). The Fund will normally invest at least 90% of its total assets in securities that comprise the Index and American depositary receipts based on the securities in the Index. The Index is designed to replicate the Indian equity markets as a whole, through a group of 50 Indian stocks selected from a universe of the largest companies listed on two major Indian exchanges. |
| 9 | Direxion Daily India Bull 3X Shares (INDL) |  22% | This ETF is only meant for people who are interested in very short term trading and understand that this ETF seeks to magnify daily performance three times and the same result won’t be achieved on a longer timeframe. |
| 10 | MSCI India Index Fund (INDA) |  NA |
The MSCI India Index is designed to measure the performance of the large and mid cap |
| 11 | MSCI India Small Cap Index Fund (SMIN) | NA | The MSCI India Small Cap Index is designed to measure the performance of the small cap segment of the Indian market. With 205 consituents, the index represents approximately 14% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization of the India equity universe. |
*Returns as on Nov 29 2012.
Hello Manshu,
Thanks for this information.
Could you also throw some light on how a retail investor can invest in these funds?
Is there an indirect way through Indian MFs or do we need to have a foreign currency account and so forth?
Thanks,
Ashish
Hi Ashish,
These are meant for people in the US who wish to invest in India as they have no other option to do so. For Indians, you have so many options of buying a Nifty ETF or other mutual funds that you don’t need to invest in these US based funds which will then in turn invest in India. It doesn’t serve any purpose.
Is that clear or do you have any more questions?
Hi Manshu,
Thanks. My intention was to ask – how can an Indian investor invest in US based equities/funds (not necessarily the ones above).
However by browsing through your site – I got that information too.
Thanks a lot.
Regards,
AShish
okay that’s great, sorry I didn’t get that at first since there is no distinction between a US and Indian origin investor if you are in the US and want to buy these ETFs.