Looking for exposure to the world’s financial markets but concerned about what will happen to Mexico under U.S. President Donald Trump? WisdomTree Investments Inc.’s got an exchange-traded fund for you.
The New York-based ETF provider unveiled Friday the WisdomTree Global ex-Mexico Equity Fund, which invests in emerging markets, mature nations and currencies like the Korean won. But it avoids one country—Mexico.
The fund, which goes by the symbol XMX, is the first U.S. ETF to deliberately exclude America’s neighbor to the South from its exposure. It uses the WisdomTree Global ex-Mexico Equity Index as its underlying benchmark. The gauge currently is trading at an all-time high.
The launch comes as investors assess the prospects of Mexico’s growth amid Trump’s threats to renegotiate the North America Free Trade Agreement and impose a tax on imports. While the long-term implications of these proposals remain in flux, equity investors have so far largely looked past these concerns.
Mexican stocks have gained 5.2 percent this year and are trading near where they were before Trump’s election victory sent them into a free-fall.
“If the U.S.-Mexico relations continue to sour, there would be an interest in a product like this,” said Mohit Bajaj, a director of ETF trading solutions at WallachBeth Capital in New York. “It probably would have made more sense to start the fund in the latter quarter of last year.”
The fund's net expense ratio is 0.03 percent. and the U.S. is by far the single largest country allocation at 58 percent. Japan and the U.K. are the next largest allocations at 8.4 percent and 6.4 percent, respectively.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.