Barclays Global Investors has expanded on the Asian invasion within equity markets with a new exchange traded fund (ETF) that takes investors deeper into the continent.

The iShares MSCI All Country Asia ex-Japan Index Fund is listed on Nasdaq, and it offers broad, diversified access to the equity markets in Hong Kong, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand, reports ETF Express. The expense ratio is set at 0.74%.

The goal of this ETF is to give exposure to developed Asian equity markets, without the impact of Japan and Australia. At the same time, emerging markets such as Indonesia and Thailand are expressed.

You could be carrying some of the day’s biggest exchange traded fund (ETF) rallies right in your pocket.

Copper, nickel and other base metals surged today as the dollar weakened and oil prices crept back up, report Pratima Desai and Julie Crust for Reuters.

Nickel also rose 7.3% on news that Xstrata was suspending operations at its Falcondo ferronickel mining facility in the Dominican Republic. Nickel is mainly used in the production of stainless steel. One analyst says that because of the news, the market should be brought close to balance instead of being oversupplied.

Copper also shot up 12 cents. It has been slightly depressed this year, falling more than 15% since reaching a record high on July 2. The decrease came after markets started pricing in slow demand growth from China, which is a top consumer of the metal.

Lead ticked up 6.2% at the close on Monday after stockpiles earmarked for withdrawal shot up 11% to their highest level since July 2006, reports Chanyaporn Chanjaroen for Bloomberg. The price of lead has fallen 29% this year.

• iPath DJ AIG Nickel (JJN), down 31% year-to-date
• iPath DJ AIG Copper (JJC), down 9.1% year-to-date
• iPath DJ AIG Lead (LD), down 4.4% year-to-date
• PowerShares DB Base Metals (DBB), down 0.6% year-to-date

As many exchange traded funds (ETFs) cover emerging markets, Russia may provide too much risk for some investors despite the until-recent success of these emerging market economies. The Russian economy started off strong this year, but a cloud of risk surrounds the country.

Eli Hoffman for Seeking Alpha reports that the Russian Stock Market rose 4% last week, even in the midst of its ongoing feud with Georgia. The Market Vectors Russia ETF (RSX) is down 19.3% year-to-date and tracks the Russian stock market. However, growth over the past week shows investors are more concerned about oil prices than the conflict with Georgia.

This week, the fund is getting socked. On Monday, the fund lost 1.3% and today, it’s down more than 4% midday. It could have something to do with the fact that last week, it looked like the conflict would come to a close pretty quickly. This week, that doesn’t seem to be the case, reports Joanne Von Alroth for Investor’s Business Daily.

Russia’s current situation illustrates the political risk of investing in emerging markets. The risk of government intervention is ever-present and the country is also facing 15% inflation.

With many positive characteristics, these risks seem to outweigh some of the pluses Russia brings to the table. Lots of natural resources, $600 billion in forex reserves and a growing consumer economy all provide Russia with investment appeal. However, if an investor cannot stomach the risk, then they should not be in areas that have more than the usual.

The SPDR S&P Emerging Europe ETF (GUR) can provide investors with a little more diversified exposure to Russia. This ETF comprises 35.6% Russia; 22.9% UK; 12.2% Poland; and 10.6% Turkey, but is down 22.8% year-to-date.

For more perspective on the conflict, listen to James Traub speak about it on Fresh Air.

Tom Lydon talks about iMoney: Profitable ETF Strategies for Every Investor, as well his top ETF investing trends.

Visit Advisor Perspectives to get Tom’s thoughts on where ETFs have been headed so far in 2008.

Oil companies have more money than they know what to do with, and while it helps the related exchange traded funds (ETFs), they’re finding themselves struggling to spend it.

Much of the reason has to do with politics: Western oil companies are being edged out of resource-rich provinces, or being forced to renegotiate contracts on less-favorable terms, reports Jad Mouawad for the New York Times.

One expert is blunt: the industry is in a crisis of leadership, strategy and plans for the future. Despite the recent drop in prices, the world is still going to need more oil to satisfy developing economies, and those future supplies are going to be hard to come by if things keep going this way.

The supply problem that led oil’s leap above $100 a barrel this year became even more apparent when five of the companies said their output had fallen by 614,000 barrels a day. It was the steepest decline in five consecutive quarters of them.

Until the 1970s, Western corporations controlled more than half of the world’s oil production. Today, the 10 largest holders are state-owned companies, while Western companies account for only 13%. All this explains the push for offshore drilling in the United States.

When OPEC meets next month, it will address the supply and demand issues.

• iShares Dow Jones U.S. Oil & Gas Exploration & Production (IEO), down 6.6% year-to-date
• SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production (XOP), down 2.2% year-to-date

Life is getting more expensive these days, and exchange traded funds (ETFs) could reflect it.

Wholesale prices are shooting up at their fastest clip since 1981. Inflation surged 1.2% in July, more than twice what had been expected, reports Martin Crutsinger for the Associated Press. Blame energy and food costs.

Prices excluding food and energy rose 0.7%, and it was more than triple the 0.2% expected. Food prices rose 0.3%, down from a 1.5% jump in June. Beef got the most expensive, rising up 7.4%.

Home construction also fell to its lowest pace in 17 years. That’s pretty strong evidence that the housing market is far from out of crisis. Building permits also fell 17.7%, Lisa Lambert for Reuters reports.

• SPDR S&P Homebuilders (XHB), down 4.7% year-to-date
• iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction (ITB), down 12.4% year-to-date
• Retail HOLDRs (RTH), up 2.7% year-to-date
• SPDR S&P Retail (XRT), down 5.1% year-to-date
• Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (XLP), up 0.5% year-to-date

For full disclosure, some of Tom Lydon’s clients own shares of XLP.

Would you believe it if we told you the fastest-growing exchange traded fund (ETF) provider in the world isn’t in the United States? You’d better, because it’s true.

db x-trackers already is the third-largest provider in Europe, with 14% of the market share, reports Steve Johnson for the Financial Times. The first Deutsche Bank ETF in Europe was launched in January 2007 and is now behind BGI and Lyxor.

In the first half of 2008, the provider increased its assets by $8.2 billion, making it the leader in the European ETF market. Since September 2007, db x-trackers has listed 53 ETFs on the London Stock Exchange. Globally, there are 87 ETFs with 240 listings across Europe.

Part of the growth in db x-trackers is attributed to the provider’s willingness to exploit neglected or lightly populated niches, such as shariah-compliant products and the overlooked London market. But they’ve also launched some mainstream products, too, based on the standard blue-chip indices.

Manooj Mistry is the head of the firm and credited with making it a leading player. He joined them in 2006. Mistry says that they’ve tried to separate themselves from the herd by keeping tracking error to a minimum.

Mistry is not done yet: they’ve got emerging market products, plus short and leveraged funds, in the pipeline.

When it comes to commodity exchange traded funds (ETFs), choosing among the many available isn’t always a simple task.

Investors have realized that prices for things like oil and corn can surge even as the rest of the market spoils. Ian Salisbury for The Wall Street Journal reports that many financial advisors are now keeping a small portion of investors’ assets in commodities to smooth overall volatility in a portfolio.

But constructing an index of commodities can be a challenge. Stock indexes often contain companies weighted by market capitalization - but that’s not possible with commodities. This means index designers have to take a different route, and it yields wildly different results.

Compare the iShares S&P GSCI Commodity Indexed Trust. It has 78% in energy and 2% in precious metals. As a result, it is up higher despite the recent declines in oil. The Greenhaven Continuous Commodity Index has 47% in agriculture and 18% in energy, and it’s up 2% since launching in late January.

Many other commodity ETFs and exchange traded notes (ETNs) sit somewhere between those two extremes.

Index designers have different ways of decided how much of which commodity to include. One way is to estimate how much of a commodity is produced in a year. But commodities are not like equities and the closest thing you can get to market-cap weighting is to estimate production.

• iShares S&P GSCI Commodity-Indexed Trust (GSG), up 11.2% year-to-date
• GreenHaven Continuous Commodity Index (GCC), down 0.3% since Jan. 24 inception
• iPath Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index TR (DJP), up 2% year-to-date

The expense ratios for exchange traded funds (ETFs) and exchange traded notes (ETNs) for the third quarter have just been tallied up.

The findings were that in most funds, the increases were few. If there were any, they were modest, reports ETF Guide. The median expense ratio for 727 products across all categories was 0.49%.

The largest ETF area is industry and sector, with 175 ETFs to represent it, and the average expense ratio was 0.58%. Global and international is the second-largest area, with 144 ETFs. The average expense ratio was 0.51%. The cheapest ETFs are those in the fixed-income area. The average expense ratio for all 62 funds is 0.20%.

Mutual fund fees also are coming down, and have been since 1980, reports the Investment Company Institute. Back then, fees were an average of 2.32%. In 2007, they were an average of 1.02%

Exchange traded fund (ETF) managers have taken a cue from hedge funds and mutual funds and created ETFs that specifically hold shares of other ETFs. It’s like a one-stop-shop for investors.

The proliferation of ETFs has given way to some creative ETF ideas and strategies, and they keep getting even more creative. PowerShares introduced three funds of funds in May, one of which was PowerShares Autonomic Balanced Growth NFA Global Asset Portfolio (PAO). The expense ratio is at 0.25% and the ETF has gathered $8 million in assets.

The two other ETFs that take this strategy are:

• PowerShares Autonomic Balanced NFA Global Asset Portfolio (PCA)
• PowerShares Autonomic Growth NFA Global Asset Portfolio (PTO)

All three funds have 30 holdings and charge 0.25% for the expense ratio and underlying fees are applicable due to assets, explains Zoe Van Schyndel for The Motley Fool.

The funds are a mix of equity and fixed-income and can underperform the general market. The diversification can serve well in a portfolio and can serve as a core holding. The one-stop approach is simple and effective, especially as a big time-saver for the investor who just wants to set it and forget it. One caveat is that the cost can be relatively high, because of the fees for the fund, plus the fees in the underlying funds.

The dollar is regaining its health, as the rally goes on to another day, raising up the commodities markets and all focused exchange traded funds (ETFs).

But despite all the recent performance, today the dollar has taken a step back amid suspicion that its recent rally has been too quick to keep it up. Since hitting a record low in July, the U.S. dollar has gained 8.1%, report Ye Xie and Corell Eddings for Bloomberg.

On Friday, the greenback climbed to a two-year high against the British pound and the euro, reports David Ellis for CNN Money. The dollar’s recent rise is made more impressive when one considers that it’s happening amid global economic turmoil. The dollar climbed higher than a number of currencies this past month, most importantly, the euro.

ETFs affected by the movements in currencies:

• CurrencyShares British Pound Sterling (FXB), down 3.6% year-to-date
• WisdomTree Dreyfus Japanese Yen Trust (JYF), down 5.5% since May 22 inception
• CurrencyShares Euro Trust (FXE), up 2.7% year-to-date
• PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish (UUP), up 1% year-to-date

For full disclosure, Tom Lydon’s clients own shares of UUP.

Read the disclosure, as Tom Lydon is a board member of Rydex Funds.

Grain prices have been falling along with exchange traded funds (ETFs), but that could soon change if demand keeps ticking up.

There has been a commodities selloff in recent weeks, but analysts say that this may not be the case for much longer, reports Sarah McFarlane for the Wall Street Journal. At the end of the day, after all, ya gotta eat, right?

It isn’t entirely clear if the recent weakness in prices means that investor sentiment toward wheat, soybeans and the like have changed, or if it’s the increased size of this year’s crop. Since the end of June, prices have fallen between 20% and 35%. Figures from last week, however, show that despite the size of the crop, global demand is rising quickly enough to justify high prices.

Meanwhile, gold continues to fluctuate along with oil and other commodities prices. It’s up this morning on news of a weakening dollar and rising oil, but experts predict that gold is headed for its sixth-straight losing week, says Pham-Duy Nguyen for Bloomberg.  Gold is currently about 25% off its record high of $1,033.90, reached on March 17 of this year. The last time it fell for six straight weeks was in May 2004.

Affected ETFs include:

• E-TRACS UBS Bloomberg CMCI Food (FUD), down 1.4% since April 4 inception
• ELEMENTS MLCX Grains Index TR (GRU), down 12.1% since Feb. 15 inception
• PowerShares DB Agriculture (DBA), up 3.8% year-to-date
• SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), down 5.9% year-to-date
• iShares Silver Trust (SLV), down 4.3% year-to-date

Exchange traded funds (ETFs) for Australia and steel could benefit from BHP Billiton’s banner year of record profits.

The world’s largest mining company said that its net profit for the year ending June 30 rose 14.7% to $15.39 billion, reports the Associated Press. It was what analysts had been expecting, and was helped along by both increased production and higher prices for oil, copper, iron ore, coal and manganese.

BHP Billiton is in the midst of a hostile takeover bid of Rio Tinto, since they believe that a global slowdown shouldn’t affect demand for these commodities, reports Stacey Vanek-Smith for Marketplace.

There are questions about BHP’s $130 billion all-share bid, though. Some analysts think both companies are doing well enough on their own and don’t need to merge. Others feel that Rio could hold out for an even better offer. If the merger were to go through, the two companies would control one-third of the iron ore market.

• Market Vectors Steel (SLX): down 9.1% year-to-date; Rio Tinto is 12.5%
• iShares MSCI Australia (EWA): down 20% year-to-date; BHP is 16.8%; Rio Tinto is 4.4%
• NETS S&P/ASX 200 Index Fund (AUS): down 15.9% since April 10 inception; BHP is 14%; Rio Tinto is 3.6%

Asia and its exchange traded funds (ETFs) have been going through a cooling trend, and economists now say that Hong Kong has cooled to its slowest pace since the third quarter of 2003.

That was just after the economy began to recover after shrinking during a respiratory syndrome epidemic,  reports Nipa Piboontanasawat for Bloomberg.

GDP rose 4.2% in the second quarter from a year earlier, and the curbed global demand for Chinese-made exports shipped through Hong Kong has affected their economy. The GDP in the previous three months had risen 7.3%. From the first quarter, Hong Kong’s economy contracted 1.4%.

Likewise, rising prices and a stock market decline has dampened the hot streak of iShares MSCI Hong Kong (EWH). Top holdings are given toward financial services at a whopping 55%, giving the outlook for a recovery a longer time frame. Utilities are weighted at 14.4% and telecom at 10.4% round out the ETF.

Also launched this year is the NETS Hang Seng Index Fund (HKG), which is down 11% since its April 11 inception. The fund has a lower weighting in financials, at 43.2%. Telecommunications is 16.3% and energy is 12.2%.

Investors today dumped Hong Kong banking stocks after JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced more losses from its mortgage-related investments, reports Thomson Financial.

The government is keeping its forecast for economic growth between 4% and 5% for this year. The expansion in 2007 was at 6.4%, while inflation was 2%. This year, it’s expected to jump to 4.2%.

Oil and oil-related exchange traded funds (ETFs), like Jimmy Stewart in “Vertigo,” look up. Then they look down. They look up. Then they look down.

What’s going on? Early this morning, the situation was no different. The price of a barrel crept back up to $115 on the threat of Tropical Storm Fay, reports Stevenson Jacobs for the Associated Press. But then the threat eased, and oil went back down below $113.

A slightly weakened dollar is so far keeping prices from falling even lower.

Gas is continuing its downward trek, too, falling for its 32nd consecutive day. The average price for a gallon is now $3.741, reports Kenneth Musante for CNN Money. Prices are still 35% higher from a year ago.

Stacey Vanek-Smith for Marketplace gives some perspective on why oil continues to fluctuate so much and what can be done about it. One issue that’s been raised is that of drilling domestically. But Mark Bernstein, director of the energy institute at the University of Southern California, says that it won’t help.

We hit our peak oil production 30 years ago, and not much more is likely to be found, he says. And perhaps instead of tapping into what’s left now, it might be worth considering saving it as insurance for later.

Bernstein also sees more fluctuation in our future, because there isn’t much consumers can do in the short-term to affect prices that would really work in the long-term. What it’s going to take is a major, and lasting, behavioral change.

• United States Oil (USO), up 21.2% year-to-date
• United States Gasoline (UGA), up 6.3% since Feb. 28 inception
• MacroShares $100 Oil Down (DOY), up 14.3% since July 22 inception
• PowerShares DB Oil (DBO), up 24.6% year-to-date

The software sector has proven to be anything but soft recently, as related exchange traded funds (ETFs) are trending above their 200-day moving average. Software can benefit in a slowing economy as companies look to ways to become more efficient in their operations, reports Trang Ho for Investor’s Business Daily.  Companies may not cut the technology budget if they know they can improve their operations and save money down the road.

Software-related ETFs moving up recently include:

• iShares S&P North American Technology Software Index (IGV), up 10.7% for the past month and down 1.1% year-to-date
• Software HOLDRs (SWH), up 9.7% for the past month and down 1.3% year-to-date
• PowerShares Dynamic Software Portfolio (PSJ), up 8.4% for the past month and down 6.1% year-to-date

The main software players in the ETFs, and in the industry, include Adobe Systems (ADBE), Oracle (ORCL), Symantec (SYMC), and Microsoft (MSFT); all helping drive the performance of these ETFs.

When it comes to alternative energy, Sweden is one of the countries leading the green revolution, could this be what the iShares MSCI Sweden Index (EWD) needs? King Carl XVI of Sweden is scheduled to visit Michigan in September to discuss alternative energy topics, while there are Swedish companies already involved in state of the art energy ventures in Michigan, reports Tom Walsh of Freep.

Sweden has declared a mission to be the world’s first oil-free economy. Within 15 years they plan to wean themselves off oil without building any new nuclear energy plants. John Vidal for The Guardian reports that the Swedish government plans to replace all fossil fuels with renewables before climate change can destroy economies and oil scarcity leads to huge price rises. The Swede’s are ready to launch their high speed “green” train, the Grona Taget, which will operate on current railway infrastructure so there is no need to lay new tracks or waste the old ones. Top speeds have reached 183 MPH on test runs, and energy use will be cut by 30% by operational costs and journey times, reports Ariel Shwartz for Clean Technia .

EWD is down 15.5% year-to-date and allocates 30.9% toward industrial materials; perhaps giving the ETF a chance to get green with it’s country.

Investors had long been anticipating the impact of the Olympics upon China’s economy, but after all is said and done, the results may only be negligible, for the country and related exchange traded funds (ETFs).

Chi Lo for Business Week reports that the total Olympics-related spending in the last four years only accounted for an average of 0.3% of China’s total GDP each year.

Beijing would have to be an economic powerhouse for it to influence national economic growth. But as it is, Beijing’s population is only 1.1% of the national total. There has also been no spillover effect on investment outside Beijing.

In better news, though, retail spending in China is expanding at the fastest pace in nine years, and July proved that China’s growth was strong even as prices climbed.

Paul Panckhurst and Nipa Piboontanasawat for Bloomberg reports that sales rose 23.3% to 869.2 billion yuan,($126 billion) after gaining 23% in June. This was more than analysts anticipated.

This is proof of China’s economic strength, even as Japan is facing a recession and global growth is stunted, the growth in China is surging. ETFs that refelct this strength:

• iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (FXI), down 26.9% year-to-date
• SPDR S&P China (GXC), down 31.3% year-to-date
• PowerShares Golden Dragon Halter USX China (PGJ), down 31.9% year-to-date
• NETS Hang Seng China Enterprises Index (SNO), down 18% since May 22 launch

The exchange traded fund (ETF) fan club keeps on growing.

Brian Neill for the Bradenton Herald says that he’s staying away from most individual stocks. Instead, he’s spending more time on ETFs, and the more he learns, the more he likes them.

His portfolio is made of of some funds that help him rest easier at night:

• Dow Diamonds Trust (DIA)
• SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)
• S&P Mid Cap 400 (MDY)
• Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF)

Among one of Neil’s biggest themes he’s sticking with is caution. The ETFs he has in his portfolio are broad-based, so he gets a wide array of exposure. In the wake of recent volatility, broad baskets of stocks keep the risk factor lower than it would be with individual stock-picking.

So whether the renewed strength in the dollar helped his portfolio, or crude’s drop to a 3-month low, or simple magic, it doesn’t matter, because with ETF investing, you’re covered.

As the exchange traded fund (ETF) industry continues to proliferate, many will try their hand at creating and backing new products and portfolios.

Ron Ryan is indispensable at creating some of the world’s most renowned bond indexes when he worked at Lehman Brothers but went out on his own in 1982 in a quest to create better mousetraps, according to Murray Coleman for Index Universe.

Ryan began with bond mutual funds, a benchmark of a range in maturities that caught on quickly, with the idea that money managers could have a pre-fabricated bond ladder. His latest endeavor was with Ameristock which focused on U.S. Treasuries. The provider has recently shut his latest ETFs down, but this will not dissuade Ryan.

And while those funds have closed, there’s still the PowerShares 1-30 Year Laddered Treasury Portfolio (PLW), which has $47.5 million in assets.

Ryan stands behind ETFs, as the built-in flexibility, transparency and low-cost are part of the reason more sophisticated and investor-focused indexes will keep coming out, and he will continue to be part of this wave.

Right now, he’s working on a longer-term maturity SRI bond index. His firm, Ryan ALM Inc., also creates custom indexes for institutional clients.

Is he soured on ETFs? Not a bit. We look forward to seeing what his next move will be.