Continuing a parade of recent ETF registrations, WisdomTree registered on Wednesday to launch six new funds--WisdomTree LargeCap Growth, WisdomTree International Large Cap Growth, WisdomTree Middle East Dividend, WisdomTree Global Dividend, WisdomTree Global Small Cap Dividend, and WisdomTree Global Equity Income.

In addition, SSGA registered a raft of foreign sector ETFs on Tuesday. Those forthcoming ETFs, which would be the companions to their domestic siblings (i.e., Financial Select Sector SPDR, etc.), include SPDR S&P International Consumer Discretionary, SPDR S&P International Consumer Staples, SPDR S&P International Energy, SPDR S&P International Financial, SPDR S&P International Health Care, SPDR S&P International Industrial, SPDR S&P International Materials, SPDR S&P International Technology, SPDR S&P International Telecommunications, and SPDR S&P International Utilities.

WisdomTree

The forthcoming growth funds and the Middle East fund strike me as most interesting. The two growth ETFs would be the first of their kind in WisdomTree's line-up, which primarily emphasizes funds that track dividend-weighted or earnings-weighted indexes. In fact, only one of WisdomTree's ETFs--WisdomTree India Earnings--can be found in the growth column of the Morningstar style-box.

The domestic growth fund seems to take a page from WisdomTree Low P/E's strategy, as it'll only consider firms that have posted cumulative positive earnings in the past four quarters. However, it'll also require that each name have notched positive year-over-year EPS, book value per share, sales per share, and stock price growth. Of those names, it'll sweep in the top-1,000 by market-cap, rank those 1,000 based on annual earnings per share growth, annual sales per share growth, annual book value per share growth, and annual stock price growth, and then select the top 30% of names that score highest on that basis. It'll then weight those names based on their earnings over the most recent four fiscal quarters.

The international growth fund is similar, with a few notable differences. First, whereas the domestic growth fund will only consider firms that have posted positive earnings in the past four quarters, this fund will only include those that have paid at least $5 million in regular cash dividends in the past year. The other requirements appear to be identical (i.e., year-over-year growth, market-cap). But the index will weight the top 30% based on cash dividends, not earnings. (Interestingly, the prospectus makes reference to a WisdomTree World ex-U.S. Index, from which it will draw firms that have paid the requisite $5 million in cash dividends. That's the first time such an index has been mentioned in a filing, possibly suggesting that WisdomTree will eventually launch a WisdomTree World ex-U.S. ETF.)

As for the Middle East Dividend ETF, here's how the prospectus describes the security selection process...

Companies eligible for inclusion in the Index must be incorporated in and have their shares listed on a major stock exchange in Bahrain, Dubai, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Companies must have paid at least $5 million in cash dividends on their common stock in the 12 months prior to the most recent index measurement date. Companies are weighted in the Index based on regular cash dividends paid. The Index is composed of primarily mid capitalization stocks. As of March 31, 2008, approximately 54% of the index consisted of companies with a market capitalization between $2 billion and $10 billion.

We recently blogged about the forthcoming PowerShares MENA Frontier Countries Portfolio. That ETF will track an index spanning the same countries with two exceptions--it includes Nigeria, which the WisdomTree index omits, and excludes Bahrain, which the WisdomTree index includes. And, of course, the PowerShares fund's index will weight stocks by market-cap, whereas the WisdomTree index will dividend-weight its constituents.

Of the other WisdomTree ETFs included in the filing, perhaps the most remarkable attribute is their global mandate, as there aren't any other U.S.-listed global dividend ETFs in existence at the moment, to our knowledge at least.

SPDR International Sector ETFs

I'll keep things uncharacteristically short/snappy here: It looks like the various international sector ETFs will draw from the same parent index--the S&P/Citigroup BMI World Index--and then make a few tweaks to cap holding weightings (in order to comply with the Internal Revenue Code). Though I don't have ready access to the particular indexes these ETFs will track, we can at least approximate what the portfolios might hold judging from the holdings of SPDR S&P World ex-U.S, which tracks the S&P/Citigroup parent index mentioned. For instance, if we strip out all of that fund's energy holdings and then rescale the weightings, we end up with the following holdings list. 

Again, this is merely an approximation. But it should give you a feel for the composition of these funds. Though they're not unique--WisdomTree already offers a suite of foreign sector funds--they'll be distinctive in that they weight stocks by market-cap (WisdomTree dividend-weights the names in its various foreign sector ETFs). In addition, whereas WisdomTree omits Canadian stocks from its foreign sector indexes, it appears the SPDR family will include them.