Another Israel ETF Could Be On The Way

Van Eck's Market Vectors unit, the fifth-largest U.S. ETF issuer by assets under management, has filed plans with the Securities and Exchange Commission to possibly introduce the Market Vectors Israel ETF.

The prospectus filed with the SEC includes ticker and expense ratio information, indicating Market Vectors could be close to bringing the fund to market. The Market Vectors Israel ETF will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "ISRA" and have an annual expense ratio of 0.59 percent, according to the filing.

ISRA will compete directly with the iShares MSCI Israel Capped Investable Market Index Fund (NYSE:EIS), which recently turned five years old.

ISRA will track the BlueStar Israel Global Index, which is a a rules based, modified capitalization, free-float adjusted weighted index intended to give investors a means of tracking the overall performance of publicly traded companies that are generally considered to be Israeli companies, according to the filing.

There will be at least one major difference between the new Market Vectors Israel ETF and EIS: Weightings. Teva Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:TEVA) accounts for 22.2 percent of the total weight in EIS, but no stock accounts for more than 12.5 percent of ISRA's index.

The BlueStar Israel Global Index included 94 securities of companies with a market capitalization range of between approximately $133 million and $35.1 billion and an average market capitalization of $1.9 billion as of March 1, 2013.

EIS has gained 4.6 percent in the past year. Average daily volume in the ETF is almost 18,100 shares.

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