ETF Talk: Mining the Middle East for Dividends

When the stock market is trending downward, it is difficult to know what to do. Amid the uncertainty is the proven benefit of owning dividend-paying stocks. Sure, the share prices of such stocks and equity ETFs can fall, but the dividend payments continue to generate income in both good and bad times.

Before I expound further about dividend-paying ETFs, remember to e-mail me if you have any questions about ETFs that you’d like me to answer. To e-mail me a question, click here and I will try to address it in a future version of ETF Talk.

Despite the current market gyrations, one intriguing new ETF that offers exposure to a growth-oriented foreign market and dividend income is the WisdomTree Middle East Dividend Fund (GULF). The new ETF began trading on July 16. The fund is based on the performance of the WisdomTree Middle East Dividend Index.

GULF gives investors exposure to approximately 70 dividend-paying companies listed in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. If you’re worried that oil prices will resume their upward trajectory after their recent pullback, the countries featured in the GULF ETF should benefit economically from such a trend. Oil certainly is a key commodity for Middle Eastern countries and their economies but this fund is not dependent on the performance of just one sector. In fact, its biggest exposure is to Middle Eastern banks and other financial stocks. That sector accounted for 49.61% of the fund’s assets as of July 29.

The fund’s second- and third-largest sector holdings are telecommunications services and industrials, respectively. Telecommunications companies drew 24.56% of the fund’s assets as of July 29, while industrials took in 11.37%. Clearly, this fund is diversified in ways that focus on the region’s overall growth opportunities and the kinds of companies that will benefit from continued Gross Domestic Product (GDP) gains.

Kuwait is the nation that has attracted the most investment dollars of GULF. The fund has put 27.73% of its holdings into Kuwaiti companies, while the United Arab Emirates, with 18.12%, and Egypt, with 12.69%, round out the top three countries where GULF has placed its investment funds.

I am not recommending this new fund right now, as it still is trying to build its trading volume to the threshold of 100,000 shares a day that I like to see before pursuing such an opportunity. You may want to hold off on investing in GULF until its trading volume increases, and until we see its price performance for the first four-to-six weeks.

Still, I think the idea of mining for dividends in the Middle East is sound, and I will definitely be keeping a close watch on GULF for all of us.