BlackRock, Inc. announced that the iShares Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) business, the world’s largest manager of ETFs, launched the new iShares MSCI Russia Capped Index Fund (ERUS) on the NYSE Arca. The new fund launch completes the suite of iShares BRIC single country funds. In addition, with the launch today, the iShares international single country offering includes nearly 40 ETFs and 19 dedicated to emerging countries.
“The new iShares MSCI Russia Capped Index Fund offers greater precision and access to the 12th largest economy in the world(1),” said Noel Archard, Head of US Product at iShares, BlackRock. “The new iShares fund further enhances our large single country iShares ETF lineup to respond to requests from financial advisors and investors for greater precision in implementing their international-focused investment strategies and interest in getting deeper access to emerging market stocks to help diversify portfolios.”
The iShares MSCI Russia Capped Index Fund seeks to track the MSCI Russia 25/50 Index, which is a free-float adjusted market capitalization weighted index designed to measure the performance of equity securities listed on stock exchanges in Russia. The benchmark index is a customized variation of the MSCI Russia Index, designed to cap certain weightings to take into account the investment diversification requirement applicable to U.S. regulated investment companies. The top three sectors in the index as of October 15, 2010, are Energy (50.7%), Materials (18.4%) and Financials (14.5%).
