First, the innovative Van Eck family of ETFs has introduced a Latin America Small-Cap ETF ( LATM - news - people ) to build on its popular Brazil Small-Cap ETF ( BRF - news - people ).  Brazil dominates LATM with 43% of the basket, followed by Mexico at 23% and Canada at 19%. The small-caps in this new basket remind me of what a small-cap represented when I started in this business with Robert W. Baird: with a market cap of at least $150 million and meet certain liquidity requirements. Coupling LATM with large cap regional ILF could be a powerful double-barreled shotgun aimed at Latin American growth.  Next comes a First Trust spin on the BRIC concept by throwing out Russia and replacing it with South Korea (NYSE: EWY) one of my favorite emerging market holdings. The First Trust BICK Index Fund (NASDAQ: BICK) began trading this week.  To some, adding South Korea will seem odd since it is now leading the group of 20 and has a per capita far higher than India, China and Brazil. In fact South Korea has a GDP roughly equal to that of India though its population is about 5% of India.  South Koreas future is closely tied to growing with these countries and adding it into this grouping should add balance and lower volatility and risk.  Another aspect I like is that each country receives an equal 25% allocation in the index, consisting of up to 25 stocks, which are also equally weighted. It would be better to have more of a concentrated approach with a total of 40 stocks.  Currently, BICK has 87 holdings, and the top 10 holdings all have weightings of more than 2%.  The largest sectors are: Financials 24.8%, Technology 22.1%, Materials 13.4%, Industrials 9.6% and Telecommunications 8.5%. The top holdings, all from India, are Icici Bank ( IBN - news - people ), Satyam Computer Services ( SAY - news - people ), Tata Motors ( TTM - news - people ), Patni Computer Systems ( PTI - news - people ), and Infosys Technologies ( INFY - news - people ). The new ETF will have an expense ratio of 0.70%.  More information can be found at the First Trust homepage contains links to the BICK fact sheet and the Investor Guide.
Van Eck responds to popularity of small-caps in Brazil with a wider net of Latin American stocks while First Trust creates the BICK, an emerging markets play swapping Korea for Russia.