Besides BlackRock's iShares, what other ETF Sponsor for single country ETF's?

Seems we have these as well.

http://www.wisdomtree.com/etfs/

http://www.vaneck.com/market-vectors/

http://etf.about.com/od/foreignetfs/a/I ... d-Etns.htm

Currency hedging is a waste of money. Especially when you're talking about buying an ETF in USD when the underlying holdings will be in another currency - you don't give a monkey's about the USD in that case, you care about CAD:Underlying currency.

So if you buy GREK for example, you care about CAD:EUR not CAD:USD or USD:EUR

daverobev wrote: ↑http://etf.about.com/od/foreignetfs/a/I ... d-Etns.htm

Currency hedging is a waste of money. Especially when you're talking about buying an ETF in USD when the underlying holdings will be in another currency - you don't give a monkey's about the USD in that case, you care about CAD:Underlying currency.

So if you buy GREK for example, you care about CAD:EUR not CAD:USD or USD:EUR

Good point about the futility of currency hedging. I just read an example above that with no hedging, someone who bought Japanese ETF's last year would have left so much on the table because the YEN had depreciated so much against the USD but then again, who would have foretold that.

I was just wondering since a hedge vs USD is probably better than none at all seeing how the USDCAD's historic rates ranged from .90 to 1.62:
http://fxtop.com/en/historical-exchange ... 19&LANG=en

alanbrenton wrote: ↑Good point about the futility of currency hedging. I just read an example above that with no hedging, someone who bought Japanese ETF's last year would have left so much on the table because the YEN had depreciated so much against the USD but then again, who would have foretold that.

I was just wondering since a hedge vs USD is probably better than none at all seeing how the USDCAD's historic rates ranged from .90 to 1.62:
http://fxtop.com/en/historical-exchange ... 19&LANG=en

You have to ask yourself WHY you want to hedge.

In most cases, the answer is "you don't". If you have a compelling reason TO hedge, go for it, but know that the numbers say your returns will be lower with hedging vs without (hedging is just an extra drag on your returns).

Who cares about vs last year, how about vs the last 20-40 years? All world ETFs, not just one country?

/shrug

In most cases, hedging costs more money than it's worth. It's like buying balance protection insurance when you can pay off the balance. Any strong stable currency will fluctuate over a time frame.If you plan to hold for long term, there is no point paying for currency stability when you cant predict the currency rate past 5 years. That hedge is not free and costs over the long term.

There may be times where hedge helps (eg. Japanese companies tend to be exporters so a hedge can help as cheap Japanese helps with sales, but decreases the stock value in CDN$ terms), but the longterm,it just seems to be guaranteeing insurance premiUms for the investment company.

Thanks guys/gals. With the USD having gained strength the past few years, hopefully there will be FX mean reversion in the succeeding years.

alanbrenton wrote: ↑Thanks guys/gals. With the USD having gained strength the past few years, hopefully there will be FX mean reversion in the succeeding years.

http://www.barchart.com/chart.php?sym=^ ... &template=

What mean? From 2002 to 2008 it went from 1.6 to 1! There's nothing to say CAD won't be where it is or weaker for the next decade, or longer. Who knows? Not I.