Putin in ETFs Hits Investors as Assets Plunge - Bloomberg

Putin in ETFs Hits Investors as Assets Plunge - Bloomberg:



"Investors are abandoning WisdomTree Investments Inc.’s flagship emerging-markets exchange-traded fund at the fastest pace ever, and the fund provider has President Vladimir Putin to blame.



Asset managers have pulled a record $1.59 billion from the WisdomTree Emerging Markets Equity Income Fund in the past year, the sixth-most among more than 1,000 U.S. ETFs tracked by Bloomberg. Russian companies, which have plunged an average 43 percent this year in dollar terms, make up 17 percent of the ETF’s holdings, five times as much as in MSCI Inc.’s industry benchmark. WisdomTree’s Emerging Markets SmallCap Dividend Fund, where Russian stocks comprise 0.1 percent, posted an outflow of less than $270,000. 




The Russia-heavy ETF’s biggest holdings, from oil producer OAO Rosneft (ROSN) to lender OAO Sberbank, have sunk as tumbling oil prices and a plunging ruble further pressured an economy already crimped by international sanctions linked to Putin’s annexation of Crimea in March. Russia’s central bank raised benchmark borrowing costs for the fifth time this year on Dec. 11 in an attempt to stabilize the country’s financial markets."



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