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  Generally, open and closed end mutual funds and hedge funds are actively managed portfolios.  Whereas, lately, the fund industry has been creating many passively managed mutual funds based on market indices.  Some investors believe that passively managed index funds can routinely outperform actively managed funds.  A very popular index fund is an exchange-traded fund (ETF).  An ETF combines the benefits of index investing with some of the benefits of individual stock ownership. “Exchange-traded” refers to shares which trade on an Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ, the London Stock Exchange, or the Dublin Stock Exchange, etc.  These ETF’s have symbols and trade like an individual stock, although each ETF is comprised of many stocks, even hundreds or thousands of stocks.  Often, the highest volume stock traded on the NASDAQ is the QQQQ, which is the Powershares QQQQ Trust 100, formerly the NASDAQ 100.  ETF’s have lately become investor’s favorite way to invest in individual sectors or overseas portfolios.  Some of the advantages of ETF’s are tax efficiency for investors, relatively low expense ratios, minimum investment requirements, and ease of use.   
  Some of the popular India ETF’s include:  
 
WisdomTree India Earnings Fund (EPI) 

WisdomTree

As of March of 2008, the EPI had the following investment breakdown:EPI Wisdom Tree India Sector Weights

EPI WisdomTree India Index Top 10 Index Components :

1. Reliance Industries Ltd  12.99%
2. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd.  6.50%
3. Infosys Technologies Ltd. 5.21%
4. Bharti Airtel Limited  3.71%
5. ICICI Bank Ltd. 2.99%
6. Housing Development Finance  2.71%
7. Sterlite Industries  2.40%
8. Indian Oil Corporation Ltd.  2.35%
9. SAIL  2.25%
10. Tata Steel Limited  2.18%

Components are subject to change without notice.

The EPI was put together under the supervision of Luciano Siracusano III and Jeremy Schwartz, who direct the Research at Wisdom Tree.  Mr. Siracusano has worked at WisdomTree for nine years and is the Director of Research. Prior to joining WisdomTree, he was an Equity Analyst at Value Line, Inc.  He graduated from Columbia College with a Bachelor of Arts.  Mr. Schwartz is the Deputy Director of Research at WisdomTree Investments.  He is a graduate of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.  They have written a white paper on investing in the Indian Stock market and the WisdomTree India Index ETF (EPI) which draws the following interesting conclusion:
“Investors, advisors, and investment committees seeking exposure to the Indian market are presented with a paradox in 2008.  On the one hand,  global diversification neccessitates having exposure to the Indian equity market and India’s fast-growing economy.  On the other hand, India’s stock market, measured by several indexes, has, on an average annual basis, returned more than 50% per year for the past five years—a remarkable record unlikely to reoccur over the next five years, given historic equity returns elsewhere in the world.  Indeed, investors were reminded how volatile emerging markets can be on the down side—the Indian and Chinese stock markets expereienced double-digit declines in January 2008, and over one four-day period that month, the BSE Sensex Index fell 16%.” 

Chart for BSE SENSEX (^BSESN)

Powershares India Portfolio (PIN)

Powershares Xchange Traded Funds

Another popular ETF is the Power Share India Portfolio (PIN) , which seeks to replicate the performance of the Indus India Index which has been formulated to approximate the Indian equity markets as represented by a group of 50 Indian stocks listed on the two major India exchanges.  The fund first listed in March of 2008.  The Indus Index has outperformed some of the other Indian benchmark indices when backtested by Powershares:

Indus India Index vs BSESi and S&P

The Indus India Index return does not represent the Fund return. The performance results shown are hypothetical and reflect the investment returns that might have been achieved by investing $10,000 according to the Index on January 31, 2002.

As of March 2008, the PIN has the following sectorial breakdown:

Sector Weigth PIN

Powershares India Portfolio Top 10 Index Components :

1. Infosys Technologies Ltd.
10.05%
2. Reliance Industries Ltd.
10.05%
3. Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Ltd.
8.30%
4. Reliance Communications Ltd.
6.44%
5. Hindustan Unilever Ltd.
4.29%
6. Reliance Petroleum Ltd.
4.00%
7. Bharti Airtel Ltd.
3.26%
8. Indian Oil Corp. Ltd.
2.78%
9. HDFC Bank Ltd.
2.59%
10. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.
2.32%
Components are subject to change without notice.

"The index on which the PowerShares India Portfolio is based is designed to be the proxy for investable assets into the Indian market," said Bruce Bond, president and CEO of PowerShares. "India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and it also boasts the globe's second-largest population and fourth-largest GDP. We believe PIN is an excellent choice for investors seeking diversified access to a broad portfolio of Indian securities."
John W. Southard Jr., CFA, MBA, oversees all research, portfolio management and trading operations of the Fund. In this capacity, Mr. Southard oversees a team of portfolio managers (with Mr. Southard, the “Portfolio Managers”) who are responsible for the day-to-day management of the Fund. Peter Hubbard, who reports to Mr. Southard, is the member of the portfolio management team who is currently primarily responsible for the Fund’s day-to-day management. Mr. Hubbard receives management assistance from Jason Stoneberg, Rudolf Reitmann and Travis Trampe, who perform various functions related to portfolio management, including investing cash flows, coordinating with other team members to focus on certain asset classes, implementing investment strategy and researching and reviewing investment strategy.

EPI vs. PIN
Since both EPI and Pin were created in March 2008, there is the question how do they compare against each other. They have some fundamental differences which have made the performances skewed historically.
The difference between the two is simple to understand and has thus far created an apparent winner when judging by past performance.
EPI is a fundamentally weighted index that screens and weights 150 companies by their earnings in the previous year. PIN is a market-cap-weighted fund that owns shares in the 50 largest companies in India. The difference in construction accounts for some noticeable, but not dramatic, sector differences.
EPI allocates 41% to resources (energy and materials) while PIN has 37% in this area. EPI is lighter in tech and telecom, 17% as opposed to 26% for PIN.
First Trust ISE Chindia Index Fund (FNI)

First Trust Portfolios, LP

Managed by First Trust Portfolios L.P. , the First Trust ISE Chindia Index Fund is an ETF which seeks to closely approximate the results of the ISE Chindia Index. The First Trust ISE Chindia Index Fund started trading in May of 2007.  The Indian markets have had record volatility during this period as the following chart demonstrates:

FNI share to nav

Data reflects performance over the previous since inception as of 2/29/08

As of 2/29/08, FIN's asset allocation was:

FNI Sector Allocation

 As of December 31, 2007, the porfolio owned the following positions:

1. Infosys Technologies Limited (ADR)

7.63%

2. China Mobile (Hong Kong) Limited (ADR)

7.56%

3. PetroChina Company Limited (ADR)

6.95%

4. Sterlite Industries (India) Ltd. (ADR)

6.63%

5. ICICI Bank Limited (ADR)

6.52%

6. China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) (ADR)

6.30%

7. Aluminum Corporation of China Limited (ADR)

4.62%

8. Satyam Computer Services Limited (ADR)

4.55%

9. HDFC Bank Ltd. (ADR)

4.05%

10. Wipro Ltd (ADR)

3.80%

The fund is managed by a team supervised by Stanley Ueland, who has been a Vice President of First Trust and First Trust Portfolios from August 2005 to the present. Before First Trust, Mr. Ueland was a Vice President of BondWave LLC from 2004-2005.  Before that Mr. Ueland was an account executive at Mina Capital Management LLC and Samaritan Asset Management LLC from 2003-2004.

 
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