Wedbush files a 40-stock Central and Eastern Europe ETF with Trigon

U.S. investors have not had a broad Central and Eastern Europe ETF since iShares liquidated its MSCI Emerging Markets Eastern Europe fund in August 2015. What is listed today is a Poland fund that is 46% financials with 15.9% in one bank, an Austria fund that is 49% financials with 23% in Erste Group Bank, and a $136 million closed-end fund whose map includes Turkey and barely touches Czechia.

On Monday, September 14, Wedbush Series Trust filed a post-effective amendment proposing the Wedbush Trigon Central & Eastern Europe Growth Corridor ETF, a 40-stock fund spanning Poland, Czechia, Hungary and Austria. The Poland and Austria ETFs returned 44% and 43% over the 12 months through Monday, distributions reinvested.

The paper is Form 485APOS, the 75-day review path used to add a series. The ticker, the listing exchange, and every line of the fee table are blank; the fund has not commenced operations.

Poland, Austria, and a closed-end fund

The iShares MSCI Poland ETF BEPOL held $838 million as of Monday’s close and charges 0.59%. The iShares MSCI Austria ETF BEWO held $206 million and charges 0.49%. Together they are a $1.04 billion book.

DWS’s Central and Eastern Europe Fund, a closed-end vehicle that trades as CEE, had a 1.26% net expense ratio as of June 30, with Poland at 62%, Hungary 23%, Turkey 9%, and the Czech Republic 3%. The proposed index names Austria and does not name Turkey. The iShares fund that closed in 2015 covered Poland, Hungary and Czechia; this index adds Austria.

A 5% name cap against two bank-heavy country funds

The proposed fund would seek to track, before fees and expenses, the Solactive Trigon Central and Eastern Europe Select Index. Under normal circumstances it would invest at least 80% of net assets, plus borrowings for investment purposes, in index components. Solactive AG would construct and maintain the index. Wedbush Fund Advisers, LLC, the proposed adviser, created it in consultation with Trigon Dom Maklerski S.A., a Warsaw investment bank, and with Solactive, then licensed it to the fund.

The starting universe is constituents of the Solactive GBS Global Markets Europe Investable Universe USD Index that draw more than 30% of revenue from Eastern Europe, plus names listed on the Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Bucharest, Zagreb or Ljubljana exchanges that clear stated liquidity, free-float and state-ownership screens. The index is float-adjusted market-cap weighted, caps each name at 5.0% and each sector at 35%, and rebalances on Solactive’s quarterly calendar. As of the prospectus date it held 40 issuers, spanning large-, mid- and small-cap stocks.

A 5% name cap would not admit BEPOL’s 15.9% weight in Powszechna Kasa Oszczednosci Bank or BEWO’s 23% weight in Erste Group Bank. A 35% sector cap would not admit either fund’s financials book.

The paper flags a significant financial-sector weight in the index; it does not state the current figure.

A $1.05 billion fund, a Warsaw stake, three blank tickers

The Dan Ives Wedbush AI Revolution ETF CIVES held $1.05 billion as of Monday. The trust’s other listed products, the ReturnOnLeadership U.S. Large-Cap ETF FEXEQ, the Dan CIVES Wedbush AI Power & Infrastructure ETF DIVEP, and the Laffer Tengler large-cap fund DTGLR, are a fraction of that size, in the low tens of millions or less.

On June 16, 2025, Wedbush Financial Services, parent of the adviser, said it had bought a significant minority stake in Trigon, an independent investment bank in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe since 1989. Monday’s prospectus puts Trigon’s name on a U.S. ETF series and a seat in the index’s creation. A firm that bought into that Warsaw investment bank fifteen months ago is turning the relationship into shelf space.

Two weeks ago the same trust filed to register a daily 2x version of the AI Revolution index. On September 4 it filed a Wedbush Analog Economy ETF. Both arrived with the ticker and fee in brackets, as Monday’s CEE paper did. Three new series in two weeks, each still missing the commercial terms.

Wedbush’s listed equity ETFs carry 0.75% on CIVES, FEXEQ, and DIVEP. DTGLR carries 0.95% as of October 31, 2025. That is the pricing the same platform already uses, not a fee the new series has filed.

A regional fund has to do a job neither country ETF does, and it has to do it at a price that can sit next to 0.59% and 0.49%. That number is the one Monday’s paper does not contain.