ETF Watch: Hartford Adds Real Estate Fund

Hartford-owned Lattice has rolled out a fifth ETF.

Today Hartford Funds rolled out a fifth ETF that focuses on the real estate space. The Lattice Real Estate Strategy ETF (RORE) comes with an expense ratio of 0.45% and is listed on the NYSE Arca exchange.

RORE joins four other smart-beta Lattice ETFs, which have combined total assets under management of roughly $100 million. The fund’s underlying index—the Lattice Risk-Optimized Real Estate Strategy Index—uses a multifactor approach, selecting U.S. REITs based on their exposure to the valuation, momentum and quality factors. The index’s methodology, like all Lattice indexes, pays careful attention to the allocation of specific risks, taking into account risks around country, company and currency concentrations, among other risks, the prospectus said.

ETF Watch: Nuveen Plans Socially Responsible Funds

Nuveen has filed for a family of ETFs that target U.S.-listed companies that meet environmental, social and governance criteria. The five funds will track indexes derived from subsets of the MSCI USA Index.

The funds include the following:

• NuShares ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF
• NuShares ESG Large-Cap Value ETF
• NuShares ESG Mid-Cap Growth ETF
• NuShares ESG Mid-Cap Value ETF
• NuShares ESG Small-Cap ETF

The underlying indexes evaluate companies relative to their respective industry groups. The environmental criteria involve how a company addresses climate change, the usage of natural resources, and waste and emission management, while the social criteria involve how the company deals with employees, suppliers, product safety and sourcing, the prospectus said. The governance criteria focuses on corporate governance standards and practices.

The indexes also screen out companies with excessive carbon emissions and companies in controversial business areas, such as nuclear power, firearms and defense, and tobacco and alcohol, according to the prospectus.

The filing did not include expense ratios, tickers or a listing exchange.

Nuveen rolled out its first ETF, the NuShares Enhanced Yield U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (NUAG), a few weeks ago.

Contact Heather Bell at [email protected].