Daily ETF Watch: EDOG Nears Launch

ALPS is near launching of another sector dividend dog ETF that is looking to take risks off the table for emerging market investors. The launch will come at a time when emerging markets are once again under pressure as the Federal Reserve continues its “tapering” of quantitative easing.

The ALPS Emerging Market Sector Dividend Dogs ETF (EDOG) will track the S-Network Emerging Sector Dividend Dogs Index, which comprises the highest-dividend-paying, large-capitalization stocks domiciled in emerging markets on a sector-by-sector basis, according to a regulatory filing.

The ALPS launch comes at a time when the Federal Reserve’s new Chair Janet Yellen is saying that the Fed will stay the course and keep reducing quantitative easing even though the job market remains sluggish. That could spell near-term trouble for the new ALPS fund, as emerging markets have come to depend on the Fed’s easy-money policies of the past five years.

EDOG has an annual expense ratio of 0.60 percent, or $60 for every $10,000 invested. The new fund will complement the $510.8 million ALPS Sector Dividend Dogs ETF (SDOG | B-65) and the $95.4 million ALPS International Sector Dividend Dogs ETF (IDOG | D-39).

Filings

United Stated Commodities Funds has filed regulatory paperwork seeking permission to launch index-based, self-indexing, long/short and 130/30 funds. Self-indexing, whereby issuers bypass index providers to bring their funds to market faster and more cost efficiently, continues to be a popular trend coursing through the ETF industry.

USCF is taking a page out of other issuers’ playbook, such as Emerging Global Advisors, which plans to offer more niche products with greater efficiency through the use of indexes created in-house.

In a recent blog on the self-indexing trend, IndexUniverse ETF analyst Spencer Bogart wrote that: “One of the realizations of the low-cost movement is this: As retail investing in ETFs continues to gain steam, investors don’t want to pay for—and certainly don’t need—the brand-name index anymore.”