Northern Trust Launches Global ETF

By Staff Writer

December 01, 2008 at 02:00 AM

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Northern Trust's NETS FTSE CNBC Global 300 Index Fund ETF (MYG) was introduced for trading on the NYSE Arca stock exchange on November 19.

The new fund follows a broad basket of 300 global stocks and is calculated by the FTSE Group.

Exxon Mobil, Proctor & Gamble, and Microsoft are the fund's three largest stock holdings. Financials, energy, and consumer goods represent the fund's three largest industry sectors.

Up until now, most of Northern Trust's ETFs have been focused on the equity markets of single countries or niche sectors like real estate.

The fund's underlying index selects stocks with a passive strategy and weights each company by its market capitalization or size. All of the holdings are reconstituted annually.

The new global-index fund (MYG) is the 17th Northern Trust ETF, and it will charge annual expenses of 0.43 percent.

"We are pleased to welcome the FTSE CNBC Global 300 ETF to NYSE Arca," said Lisa Dallmer, SVP, Global Exchange Traded Products and Indexes at the NYSE Euronext.

The NETS FTSE CNBC Global 300 ETF will compete with other funds in its same category like the Vanguard Total World Stock ETF (VT) and the iShares MSCI AWCI Index Fund (ACWI). Each of the latter ETFs charge annual expenses of 0.25 and 0.35 percent.

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Ron DeLegge is the San Diego-based editor of www.etfguide.com.

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