CHIQ vs GXC

CHIQCGlobal X MSCI China Consumer Discretionary ETF

GXCAState Street SPDR S&P China ETF

In short

CHIQ A 2009-vintage bet on the Chinese consumer, not the American one: roughly 60 Chinese consumer discretionary names in a peer group otherwise stacked with US retail and S&P 500 sector funds.

GXC The whole China market in one ticker: roughly 1,400 stocks from megacaps down to small caps, tracked since 2007. Most China funds buy the famous names. GXC buys the phone book.

Stated mandate

CHIQ The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the MSCI China Consumer Discretionary 10/50 Index.

GXC The fund seeks to provide returns that generally correspond to the total return performance of the S&P China BMI Index.

Why people hold it

• CHIQ The rare consumer discretionary ETF that skips the US shopper entirely. It tracks an MSCI index of Chinese consumer names, so it moves with demand in China.globalxetfs.com
• Live since 2009, so its record spans multiple boom-and-bust turns in Chinese equities rather than one recent stretch.
• The 10/50 index design caps issuer weights, so a single mega-cap e-commerce name cannot quietly grow into most of the portfolio.globalxetfs.com
• Plain passive plumbing: a rules-based index fund in a standard 1940 Act wrapper, no swaps or leverage layered on top.

• GXC Holds roughly 1,400 names across large, mid and small caps, so the portfolio reaches well past the handful of megacap internet stocks that dominate narrower China funds.ssga.com
• Running since 2007, one of the longest-tenured US-listed China index funds, with a track record covering several full boom and bust cycles in the market.ssga.com
• Tracks the S&P China BMI Index tightly and sits in the upper tier of its single-country China peer group on our review.

Worth knowing

• CHIQ At 0.65% a year, it costs several times the 0.08% charged by the largest US consumer sector funds (XLY, FDIS). That is the toll for packaged single-country access.
• One sector, one country, about 60 stocks: Beijing policy shifts, regulation and currency moves all land in the same basket at once.
• It changes hands far less often than the big US sector ETFs, so spreads and order type matter more at the point of trade.

• GXC The 0.59% expense ratio sits at the pricier end of the shelf. Plain index rivals such as FLCH and CXSE charge less for China exposure.
• Volume is light next to the category's biggest China funds, so bid-ask spreads can widen. Limit orders are the usual defense.
• One country, one policy regime: Chinese regulation, politics and currency moves drive the whole ride, and payouts land only once or twice a year.

Full CHIQ profile⁠

Full GXC profile⁠