ETF Week: Low-Cost Country Funds Debut

Franklin Templeton added to its lineup of country and regional ETFs, among other events during the week.

The second week of October had a few highlights, but launches slowed from the prior week. Franklin Templeton further built up its lineup of country and regional ETFs, while Columbia Threadneedle launched a smart-beta municipal bond ETF. AdvisorShares replaced the advisor on its buybacks ETF, and iShares switched indexes on a few of its funds. Finally, Amplify closed its smallest fund, which invested in senior loan closed-end funds.

Below is a roundup of the key events in the ETF space during the week of Oct. 8:

Franklin Expands Country ETF Offering

Franklin Templeton launched another three ETFs covering countries and regions at rock-bottom pricing. The plain-vanilla funds cover the markets of South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Latin America, and join 20 other similar products (read: Franklin Adds To Country ETFs).

Columbia Threadneedle Debuts Smart-Beta Muni Fund
Columbia Threadneedle rolled out an ETF targeting five sectors of the municipal bond market. The methodology seeks to highlight the yield, quality, maturity, liquidity and interest-rate sensitivity factors (read: Smart Beta Muni Bond ETF Debuts).

Buyback ETF Switches Managers, Objective
AdvisorShares switched the ticker, manager and investment objective for its actively managed $88 million buyback ETF, which already changed its manager and investment objective in June 2016. The fund is now run by DoubleLine Equity, which employs a fundamental value strategy (read: Buyback ETF Changes Advisor).

iShares ETFs Change Indexes
After the Global Industry Classification Standard revamped its sectors, iShares is switching the indexes and the names of two of its ETFs that were affected by the changes. The adjustments will be effective Dec. 24. In addition, GraniteShares lowered the price on its physical gold ETF to once again give it the lowest expense ratio in the asset class (read: ETFs Change Indexes, Expense Ratios).

Amplify Shuts Down Fund
Amplify ETFs has closed the smallest ETF in its fund family. The ETF, which invested in closed-end funds that in turn invested in senior loans, had less than $4 million in assets after launching in August 2017 (read: Senior Loan ETF Closes).

Contact Heather Bell at [email protected]