WisdomTree Investments out of New York, with some fairly big-gun backers, issued 20 ETFs in June 2006. It has since launched 30 more but has closed 10 of the original lot.
Recently, WisdomTree announced plans to change the investment objectives, strategies, and fund names of eight international equity ETFs in the next few months. (These big guns are busy, turning every which way!)
Like Invesco PowerShares, WisdomTree does not like conventional cap-weighted indexes but prefers to create its own, using weightings based on earnings or dividends. Dividends, in fact, are something of a fetish of WisdomTree’s. You can buy the WisdomTree LargeCap Dividend Fund (DLN), the WisdomTree SmallCap Dividend Fund (DES), or the WisdomTree International Dividend Top 100 Fund (DOO).
DOO? WisdomTree? It sounds like a remedial reading course for middle-school students. WisdomTree seems to be still finding itself, while maturity is what you want from your financial associations. And where does this dividend fetish come from? Hopefully, for this company’s sake, dividend investing proves profitable moving forward, but that’s not certain.
For more information, call 866-909-9473 or visit the WisdomTree website.
