BlackRock’s iShares exchange-traded funds business has launched the iShares MSCI New Zealand Investable Market Index Fund on the NYSE Arca.
The fund is the first ETF focused solely on the New Zealand market.
“The iShares MSCI New Zealand Investable Market Index Fund provides financial professionals, institutions and individuals first-to-market access to a developed country in the midst of a strong economic recovery,” says Noel Archard, head of US product at iShares, BlackRock. “As the trend for international investing via single countries increases, the new iShares fund further enhances our large single country iShares ETF lineup. Investors are increasingly interested in the precision of single country investing to implement international-focused investment strategies.”
According to the International Monetary Fund, New Zealand is expected to have real GDP growth of about three per cent per year in 2010 and 2011 with inflation targeted at one to three per cent in the medium term. The country’s economy has benefitted from high growth rates in the neighbouring economies of Asia and Australia.
The fund is designed to track the MSCI New Zealand Investable Market Index. The underlying index is a free-float adjusted market capitalisation weighted index designed to measure the performance of equity securities in the top 99 per cent by market capitalisation of the equity securities listed on stock exchanges in New Zealand. The largest sector weightings of the index include materials (23 per cent), telecommunications (16 per cent) and consumer discretionary (14 per cent).
