Chips And Drugs

The Guru fund's biggest bets are on Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors NV and Micron Technology Inc, two companies that have been popular with hedge managers.

Top holdings in the Alternative Alpha ETF are Canada-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc and New York-based American International Group Inc.

So far this year the Guru fund, which traded at $25.25 on the NYSE Arca on Friday, is down about 2 percent, and the AlphaClone fund, which traded at $39.60 on the NYSE Arca, is up about 4 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index is down about 1 percent, and the HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index, a broad hedge fund industry measure, has fallen about 0.5 percent.

The ETF managers boast that their fees are much lower than those charged by hedge funds, which also often require certain minimum investments.

"We wanted to be as accessible as possible," says AlphaClone founder Mazin Jadallah.

Annual management fees are 0.75 percent for the Guru fund and 0.95 percent for Alternative Alpha, compared with 2 percent plus additional performance fees for the typical hedge fund. But the ETFs are probably more like traditional actively managed stock mutual funds, whose annual fees average about 0.77 percent, according to a 2013 report from the Investment Company Institute.

The success of the Guru ETF, which has amassed $563.6 million in assets since its inception in June 2012, and client demand have prompted Global X to offer two new copycat funds as soon as the SEC signs off on them. One will focus on shares of small companies, and another will include international stocks.

The firm uses added filters when choosing which hedge fund holdings to include in its ETF. For example, it excludes hedge funds that report less than $500 million in holdings or that have high turnover rates for their equity positions.

Whether the new ETFs will gain the same level of investor interest that the Guru and Alternative Alpha funds did in 2013 remains to be seen. AlphaClone has not yet announced plans for any new ETFs.