China
Yummy yummy China alcohol ETF
Do you love booze? Do you think China holds great investment promise? Then this might be the ETF for you.
Penghua Fund Management, a Shenzhen-based asset manager, is listing an ETF version of its Penghua CSI Alcoholic Drink Index Classified Fund. The fund tracks the CSI Alcoholic Drink Index, which picks 50 stocks which belong to the distillers, vintners and brewers industry in China.
The index it tracks has had a 3-year a nnualised return of 21%. (Not bad!) The biggest five index constituents are:
| Wuliangye Yibin Co Ltd | Consumer Staples | 11.8 |
| Luzhou Lao Jiao Co Ltd | Consumer Staples | 10.23 |
| Kweichow Moutai Co Ltd | Consumer Staples | 9.79 |
| Jiangsu Yanghe Brewery Joint-Stock Co Ltd | Consumer Staples | 8.41 |
| Beijing Shunxin Agriculture Co Ltd | Consumer Staples | 7.83 |
We’d never heard of any of them, but now want to try them in the interest of research
The Shanghai Stock Exchange, where the fund is listing, has no relevant information on its website at this stage.
Europe
S&P 500 + virtue signalling
For every ETF, there needs to be an ESG counterpart. In keeping with this maxim, UBS is listing an S&P 500 tracker that includes an ESG screen across European exchanges.
The UBS Irl ETF plc - S&P 500 ESG UCITS ETF (5ESG) will track the S&P 500 ESG Net Total Return Index. The index exclude fossil fuel heavy industries, as well as companies that make tobacco, cluster bombs, landmines, nuclear and other military armaments, the index factsheet says.
The eligible companies are then scored by RobecoSAM for environmental and social impact. The companies with the best scores in each sector are selected for index membership.
The fund will charge 0.22% compared to the 0.04% charged by regular S&P trackers. It’s a high price for smugness.