FEZ vs FGM

FEZAState Street SPDR EURO STOXX 50 ETF

FGMCFirst Trust Germany AlphaDEX Fund

In short

FEZ Fifty eurozone blue chips, one ticker, running since 2002. FEZ is the long-standing US-listed route into the euro area's biggest companies, and it charges well below the typical index fund in its peer group.

FGM Most Germany ETFs hand you the blue chips in market-cap order. FGM screens German stocks on growth and value marks and weights them by rank instead, landing on roughly 40 names. A different Germany, at a premium price.

Stated mandate

FEZ The fund seeks to deliver total returns that generally correspond to the EURO STOXX 50 Index before fees and expenses.

FGM The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the Nasdaq AlphaDEX® GermanyTM Index, an equity index focused on companies assigned to Germany.

Why people hold it

• FEZ Charges 0.29% a year against a 0.45% median for index-tracking funds in its cohort.
• Trading since 2002 and among the more actively traded names in its group, so the cost of getting in and out tends to be modest on top of the fee.
• Simple job, plainly stated: match the EURO STOXX 50 Index before fees. About 50 holdings, quarterly distributions, no tilts or overlays bolted on.
• A $1B-$5B fund from SPDR with a clean structural record and no red flags on the wrapper, which is rare staying power for a single-region equity product.

• FGM Not a cap-weighted rerun: the AlphaDEX screen ranks German companies on growth and value measures, then weights by rank rather than size.
• Roughly 40 holdings, so the screen actually shows up in the portfolio instead of getting diluted across a broad market list.
• Running since 2012 and still doing one job: German equities, one named index, tracked closely.

Worth knowing

• FEZ About 50 names in one currency bloc. That concentration puts it at the more volatile end of its peer group, and a few European mega-caps drive a lot of the result.
• It's a regional slice, not a whole-market holding. Broad global trackers such as VT run 0.06% and reach far wider.
• Returns arrive through euro-area shares, so the euro-dollar exchange rate is part of the ride for a US investor. Nothing in the mandate hedges it away.

• FGM At 0.80% a year it sits above most single-country Europe funds, and four times the 0.20% charged by the cheapest German blue-chip tracker (DAX).
• A small fund that trades lightly next to the big country ETFs, so spreads and order size are worth watching.
• One country, one screen, few dozen stocks: the ride follows Germany's cycle and the factor tilt, not a diversified basket.

Full FEZ profile⁠

Full FGM profile⁠