New Fund Targets Emerging Markets Middle Class Growth

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- ETF provider Emerging Globalshares has made its name by being first to market in several areas of the emerging markets space. It has done so again with the new EG Shares Emerging Markets Domestic Demand ETF (EMDD). The name might not be too catchy but the exposure seeks to capitalize on the burgeoning middle class in many emerging market countries.

The driver of this segment is the demand that arises from more and more citizens of emerging market countries moving into more of a middle class lifestyle. This transition is likely to be steadier than the growth of the broader economies of emerging market countries.

The "domestic demand" part of the fund's name means that the fund owns companies that offer products or services used on the ground in countries like Mexico, which is 24% of the fund, China, 15%, India, 14%, and South Africa and Brazil at 13% each, with other countries having smaller weightings.

The largest sector is telecom at 29%. This is logical in that almost every country on the planet has a large telephone country and thanks to cell phone availability, emerging market phone companies have not had to install wireline infrastructure to facilitate customer growth.

Consumer staples comprise 28%, discretionary 26%, utilities are almost 11% of the fund with health care taking up the balance of the fund. There is no financial exposure, which should be a huge positive and a point of differentiation for EMDD because of how many emerging market funds have gross overweights in financials.

The reason that no financial exposure is a positive is that as countries like Brazil and China become more prosperous they will become more financially more complex. This creates visibility for excess in the respective banking systems, leading to 2008-like implosions for financial stocks in these countries.

Also missing is the energy sector. Similar to telecom, energy is an easy way to invest in foreign markets because so many countries have a large oil company. There are plenty of foreign oil stocks that trade in the U.S. as ADRs to capture the exposure along with ETFs from many providers including the EG Shares Energy GEMS ETF (OGEM).

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