Middle East Fund Has Its Quirks, Perks

Just last month, the news was about Claymore BNY/Mellon Frontier Markets ETF(FRN Quote) -- and now, we have the second-to-market PowerShares MENA Frontier Countries Portfolio(PMNA Quote), which will mimic the NASDAQ/OMX Middle East North Africa Index.

FRN is diversified across several types of frontier markets, but the index underlying PMNA only invests, as the name implies, in a very narrow region; Kuwait 19.74%, UAE 19.04%, Egypt 16.11%, Qatar 14.52%, Morocco 12.21%, Jordan 9.20%, Oman 4.77%, Lebanon 2.22% and Bahrain 2.21%.

This is a regional fund, so country weights are large because the region doesn't have too many investible countries. If the region makes sense for your portfolio and you don't want to pick stocks, the regional approach is as broad as it's going to get.

The sector allocation may be a bit of surprise, only 2.41% of the fund is energy. The big oil companies from these countries are owned by the respective governments and not listed on the local exchanges. ...