Australia

The iShares MSCI Australia ETF tracks a market-cap-weighted index of Australian stocks. It captures 85% of the publicly available market, excluding most small-caps. While its biases against our benchmark are small, it does tilt large due to the fact that it excludes about 150 of our benchmark's smaller companies from its selection universe. Still, EWA does a great job of capturing the space. It trades well with significant daily trading volume and low spreads, and its block liquidity score is perfect. EWA typically engages in securities lending, which brings revenues to the fund, at the cost of slight counterparty risk. It charges a middling fee in context, but tracking has historically been excellent and its true holding costs are often lower than the headline fee, which, combined with solid liquidity and coverage, is why it is our Analyst Pick.