Vanguard funds with special appeal

Article Excerpt

Pennsylvania-based Vanguard Group is one of theworld’s largest investment management companies.The group manages over $1.7 trillion U.S. in 170mutual funds.Vanguard, which went into business in 1975,offers low-fee index mutual funds. Generally speaking,Canadians can’t buy units of mutual funds thatare registered in the U.S. because they aren’tregistered with provincial securities commissions.For that matter, some Canadian funds aren’t availablein all provinces.Canadians can, however, buy Vanguard exchangetraded funds (ETFs) that trade on stock exchanges.We don’t recommend all of Vanguard’s ETFs, buthere are two we do see as low-fee buys.VANGUARD EMERGING MARKETS ETF$45.47 (New York symbol VWO; buy or sell through brokers)aims to track the MSCI Emerging Markets Index,which is made up of common stocks of companieslocated in developing countries around the world.The fund has an MER of just 0.20%.Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF’s top holdingsinclude Samsung Electronics Co. (South Korea),China Mobile (China: wireless), Petroleo BrasileiroSA (Brazil: oil and gas), Taiwan Semiconductor(Taiwan: computer chips), Vale SA (Brazil: mining),America Movil SAB de CV (Latin America: wireless),Gazprom…