What is a European ETF?

A European ETF is a specific kind of financial product in the form of a fund that is easily traded, and which is based solely on European holdings. The exchange traded fund, or ETF, is a pretty new kind of investment product that many smaller investors are interested in. The ETF is a fund that is traded like a single stock, but contains many different equities or holdings, much like a mutual fund.

As online brokerages have revolutionized the way individual investors around the world do business, the ETF has become an easy entry into many different kinds of markets. One of these is the European market, where investors may have specific goals related to stocks traded in European nations. The European ETF combines some varieties of European stock holdings that may attract specific investors according to their own individual trading philosophies and notions about where European markets are headed.

The focus of some European ETFs is specifically on Western Europe, which houses some of the more dominant nations on the continent. A specific European ETF might feature some of the many stocks traded in the series of “Euronext” European exchanges in Brussels, Paris, and Amsterdam. In some of these urban centers, the Euronext trading exchange represents a modern version of an older national exchange. Other European ETFs might feature more of the European blue-chip stocks held in exchange spinoffs.

Additional European ETF options include funds based on Eastern European nations, even including peripheral nations like Turkey, elsewhere in the region. These ETFs are sometimes called “emerging Europe” ETFs. This name plays on the idea that less modernized or developed nations can be on the radar for some investors as nations with potentially charged economies that might grow rapidly over future years. Just as in other emerging markets, investors that want to utilize an emerging Europe trading strategy can look at specific European ETF offers that have holdings in countries like the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, or other nearby nations.

As a diversified fund option, the European ETF is just one potential choice in a vast array of ETFs available to most individual investors through their online brokerage accounts. These funds are relatively easy to trade, and can be monitored or traded in intraday trading, during a market day. Some of these funds might carry costs in the form of an “expense ratio,” where investors fork over management costs to the leadership of the fund. Others might have minimum contribution restrictions, where the investor has to allocate a certain amount of money to the fund in order to invest.