ETF Face-Off in India

Both Powershares India Portfolio(PIN Quote) and Wisdom Tree Earnings Fund(EPI Quote) offer investors access to India with ETF products that track this growing equity market.

As investors regain confidence and begin to look abroad for opportunities to diversify their portfolios, both EPI and PIN have offered profitable returns in 2009. iPath MSCI India Index ETN(INP Quote) also offers investors access to India but is structured differently from EPI and PIN as a debt instrument (ETN) rather than an equity instrument (ETF).

Year to date, PIN has gained 46.10% while EPI jumped 51.46%. While EPI boasts a higher trading volume and larger number of holdings, PIN is the preferable ETF for investors looking for a more balanced approach to India.

PIN tracks the Indus India Index, designed to be representative of the India equity market as a whole. The underlying index is divided among a group of market sectors and supervised by a group of index-provider representatives and members of academia who specialize in emerging markets.

PIN's index comprises 50 of the largest companies on India's two indices. PIN's top 10 components make up 52% of the funds assets, with top holding Infosys Technologies making up 9.19%. Energy is the largest sector in the underlying basket, comprising 27.90% of the portfolio. Financials and information technology comprise 14.58% and 13.17% of the portfolio, respectively. PIN's expense ratio is 0.78% and the three-month average daily trading volume for the fund is 270,000 shares.