previous year.2 Among them, assets of International Equity Funds surged by almost 140 % during
the last year, from $13.9 billion to $33.6 billion (Investment Company Institute, 2005). The two
different types of ETFs, SPDRs and iShares, analysed in the present study are discussed below.
Table 1 about here
2.1.1. SPDRs
SPDRs were launched by State Street Global Advisors in 1993. SPDRs are exchange-
traded funds that aim to track performance of various Standard & Poor’s indices. They include
SPDR Trust Series 1, referred as Spiders and Select Industry SPDRs. The former is designed as a
unit investment trust that follows the S&P500 index. The latter is constructed as an open-end
fund that tracks the performance of specific industry groups of S&P500 index (www.amex.com).
SPDRs are the largest ETFs. As of 2004 they have attracted almost $56 billion of assets and their
average daily trading amounts to $5 billion (Ross (2005)).
2.1.2. iShares
iShares, initially known as WEBS (World Equity Benchmark Securities), were launched by
Morgan Stanley in May 1996 and re-branded as iShares MSCI Index Funds by Barclays Global
Investors in May 2000. iShares have provided investors with access to markets that otherwise
would have remained beyond their reach. Accounting for 42 % of the ETF market, iShares
belong to one of the most popular ETFs today (Ross (2002)). As of January 2005, there exists 21
2 For information about non-US ETFs see Fuhr (2001), Sills and Rutter (2001), Deville (2003).