The Best First Day Ever?

By Random Roger's Big Picture - Roger Nusbaum | March 19, 2010, 7:32 am

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Yesterday may have been the best first day of an NCAA Tournament ever in terms of exciting games and bracket upheaval.

It is days like yesterday why so many people love the tournament so much, wow.

As I've mentioned a couple of times I will be giving a presentation at the Vancouver MoneyShow on April 7 about portfolio construction with ETFs. I've done this a couple of other times updating with new funds as they come out. The point is not run out and implement the portfolio but more like think about the access that ETFs offer and the flexibility they allow in building a portfolio.

In the presentation I go sector by sector and talk about each fund I use, for most sectors I include 2-4 ETFs. The financial sector is very difficult to construct. The way I look at the world I want no part of the financials in the US, Europe, Japan and China so it makes the task difficult. In client accounts we own banks from Chile, Australia and Canada. The weightings of financials in those respective iShares country funds are 9%, 44% and 34% so using them as proxies for financials is iffy except for maybe the Australia fund. The banks in Singapore are in pretty good shape so iShares Singapore (EWS), 49% financials, could be a proxy as well. The iShares Chile (ECH) and iShares Australia (EWA) are both in my ownership universe.

Other possibilities could include the GlobalX Colombia ETF (GXG) which is 46% financials, Market Vectors Poland (PLND) 38% and Market Vectors Egypt 42%. There are a couple of other one like these but you get the idea. I'm not going to front run the presentation but as handy as ETFs are there are gaps. The obvious way to fill this particular gap, the way I have framed it, is with individual stocks. The is issue here is that there are a bunch of financials I don't want to own and only a few that I do. It is very unlikely that an ETF provider will be create the Commodity Based Economy, Oh & Singapore Too Financial Sector ETF.

Enjoy today's games!
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