Tuesday, March 22, 2011

"Beware your Japan ETF exposure" (EWJ; SCJ; JSC; JPP)

I started laughing by the third line.
This is how you "write exasperated".
From FT Alphaville:
Right. We’ve had enough.

Every time you switch on the financial TV networks all anyone is talking about is the EWJ exchange-traded fund.

As if it’s a perfect proxy for Japan.

Well, it’s not.

Well, not completely.

We’ve already noted the weirdness of the huge inflows experienced by US-listed Japan ETFs last week — something that was definitely not connected to the Bank of Japan’s asset purchases, but rather something we’ve speculated could be down to arbitrage trading by HFTs, market makers and such the like, as well as the much propagated ‘bargain hunting’ theory.

Echoes of the United States Oil Fund‘s mega build up, if you will....MORE
She goes on to make the point that some of the ETF's have traded at a premium to the underlying NAV something we mentioned (in reverse, it was discounting) in discussion of the uranium ETF, URA.