Pass on this ETF

Article Excerpt

GLOBAL X INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPED MARKETS EQUITY ETF $48.32 (Toronto symbol HXDM) provides exposure to major companies listed in developed markets excluding North America. The fund, launched in September 2017, holds $557.3 million of assets, and it charges what sounds like a reasonable MER of 0.22%. The ETF tracks the Global X EAFE Futures Roll Index. The major underlying geographical exposures in the index are Japan, the U.K., France, Switzerland, and Germany. Financials, industrials, technology, and consumer goods are the main segment exposures. This fund doesn’t invest directly in individual stocks, but instead holds derivative instruments such as total return swaps with various counterparties. These swap counterparties promise to pay the ETF the return it would have generated if it had invested directly in the underlying stocks. There are several negatives related to this ETF. First, the swap with the counterparties creates counterparty risk for investors. That’s the chance of the other party in the contract to repurchase the security will default on its obligation. Counterparty…