Investing in specific countries with ETFs

• Level: For advanced
• Reading duration: 7 minutes

When the legendary Sir John Templeton first encouraged US investors to put money into overseas markets in the 1950s, global investing was in its infancy. The majority of investors kept their equity investments to their home market. For any brave investors who did look further afield, overseas investing meant using active fund managers like Sir John Templeton – or the even more daunting prospect of buying shares in foreign companies. All told, investing overseas was costly and potentially complicated. But today things are very different. The explosion in Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) has brought us hundreds of ETFs that track indices in all the major (and many minor) countries around the world. These ETFs enable you to put your money to work in different countries easily and cost-effectively, with just a few clicks at your broker. And with ETFs, there's far less risk than investing in individual foreign-listed shares. With an ETF on a broadly diversified index, you buy the whole market and thus spread your investment over a large number of companies.

A tourist's guide to ETFs

There are several reasons to consider country-specific ETFs. You might believe an economic recovery or a change of leadership in a country could herald strong returns for its stock market, for example, and hence want to invest there. Country-specific ETFs also enable active investors to back their hunches on the fortunes of particular sectors. Australian and Canadian ETFs can be a play on commodities, for instance. However most of us invest worldwide to diversify our portfolios, and here country-specific ETFs can be an attractive option. While global and regional ETFs are available that give you exposure to many different countries at once, the benchmark indices can be tracked more cheaply on a country-by-country basis. For instance, an ETF that tracks the US S&P 500 can cost just 5 basis points (0.05%) a year to own. Similarly, the UK FTSE 100 can be held for 0.07% in annual charges, and the German DAX index for 0.08%.

Cheapest ETFs on the major stock markets

Such ETFs enable you to assemble a portfolio that's spread across the world's major stock markets for a very low annual cost.

Know your index

As ever with ETFs, you should understand what index is being tracked by the different country-specific ETFs on offer in order to make sure you choose one that's right for your needs. There are usually many different broad and more specialist indices covering the stock market in the major countries. These indices typically vary in terms of the number of constituents and the size of the companies included, but they may also differ more fundamentally, such as in how they weight different companies in the index, or by vetting companies based on dividend yield. For example, the iShares UK Dividend UCITS ETF aims to track the FTSE UK Dividend+ Index. This offers exposure to the 50 highest yield UK stocks, which is reflected in the ETF's relatively high dividend yield. The two big index providers – FTSE and MSCI – provide indices for all the major countries and are widely used by country-specific ETFs. In the USA, for example, you can invest in the S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats index in addition to the well-known S&P 500. This index contains the US stocks with the highest dividend yield. You can also recognise this by its higher dividend yield compared to the S&P 500. For most countries, in addition to the respective benchmark index, there is an index from the provider MSCI in which you can invest with the help of ETFs. For example, there are numerous low-cost ETFs available on the MSCI USA or the MSCI Japan.  Our investment guides give you an overview of the different indices and enable you to compare the available ETFs.

MSCI USA and S&P 500 in comparison