Another ETF filing with a hat tip to IndexUniverse.

WisdomTree has filed for the Middle East Dividend Fund that will include Bahrain, Dubai, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The prospectus has no info on country weightings (none that I found anyway) but surprisingly 54% of the companies have market caps greater than $2 billion.

WisdomTree has an awful lot of very interesting funds on the shelf that I’d love to see list but thus far have not. Some of the filings are so old now that I doubt they will list so we’ll see if this middle east fund ever lists or not.

One thing seems pretty clear to me, frontier markets will open up to investors one way or another pretty quickly. PowerShares has a frontier fund in the works which takes in a few other countries but given the role of middle eastern countries and investment funds are now playing on the global stage a narrower fund like the one WT filed for is inevitable even if it is from another provider.

As I was working on this post the following comment came in on this morning’s post that deserves a follow up.

I sure wouldn’t attempt the kind of sophisticated trades that you’re positing. For me, it’s just enough to know that they’re out there if I ever get to that point.

I mentioned the potential of trading the spread between platinum and gold or AUD/NZD. No argument from me on the reader’s point. I would add though, is that a dynamic exists between many different things like Oz and New Zealand. As it becomes possible to more easily trade off of these dynamics means that people will submit articles to places like Seeking Alpha. And while you may never trade AUDNZD via ETFs you might equity exposure to Australia and understanding the dynamic might make you more knowledgeable about the country you own.

Now apply that to other exposures in your portfolio like maybe gold.

Last 5 posts by Roger Nusbaum

• The Big Picture for the Week of November 15, 2009 - November 14th, 2009
• Process Drilldown - October 23rd, 2009
• Sunday Morning Coffee 10-18-09 - October 18th, 2009
• A Little Followup From This Morning - October 8th, 2009
• Wednesday Roundup - October 7th, 2009