BlackRock Investments Canada Inc. is changing the index which the iShares Broad Emerging Markets Fund (TSX:CWO) seeks to replicate.

“Updating CWO enables us to extend our existing lineup of fundamental indexing products,” says Mary Anne Wiley, managing director and head of iShares at Toronto-based BlackRock Canada.

“This change demonstrates our commitment to our series of fundamentally-weighted ETFs as a complement to our suite of market-cap offerings. Investors in CWO will now benefit from an index methodology that takes account of total cash dividends, free cash flow, total sales, and book value when establishing the weight of a given company in the index.”

Effective July 1, CWO will seek to replicate the performance of the FTSE RAFI Emerging Markets Index in accordance with the funds’s investment objective of providing investors with exposure to the return and performance, net of expenses, of an index selected by BlackRock Canada which measures the investment return of securities issued by companies domiciled or operating primarily in emerging market countries.

The prospectus disclosure of CWO will be updated to reflect the index change.

iShares’ current fundamentally-weighted indexing products include:

  • iShares Broad Emerging Markets Fund (TSX:CWO)
  • iShares Canadian Fundamental Index Fund (TSX:CRQ)
  • iShares International Fundamental Index Fund (TSX:CIE)
  • iShares US Fundamental Index Fund (TSX:CLU)
  • iShares Japan Fundamental Index Fund (CAD-Hedged) (TSX:CJP)