FKU vs FLEU

FKUDFirst Trust United Kingdom AlphaDEX Fund

FLEUAFranklin FTSE Eurozone ETF

In short

FKU Most UK funds hand you the London giants in order of size. FKU runs a rules-based screen on growth and value metrics instead, then reweights about 80 British stocks by rank. Same market, very different slice. Live since 2012.

FLEU The euro bloc, straight up: no UK, no Swiss francs, no hedging overlay. Franklin charges 0.09% a year to track the FTSE Developed Eurozone Index, a fraction of the median fee among index funds in its peer group.

Stated mandate

FKU The fund seeks investment results that generally correspond to the price and yield performance of the Nasdaq AlphaDEX United Kingdom Index before fees and expenses.

FLEU The Fund uses a passive indexing approach and seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the FTSE Developed Eurozone Index.

Why people hold it

• FKU Not a cap-weighted clone: the AlphaDEX rules rank UK stocks on growth and value metrics, so the market's biggest names don't automatically get the biggest weights.ftportfolios.com
• Holds about 80 British stocks, one of the better-balanced portfolios among single-country Europe funds, so no single name carries the whole thing.
• Running since 2012 against a published Nasdaq index, so the selection rules are public and there's a long live record to inspect. Distributions come quarterly.

• FLEU 0.09% a year against a 0.45% median for index funds in its peer group. Cheap beta is the entire pitch, and Franklin delivers it.
• Roughly 300 stocks across developed eurozone markets, so the exposure reaches past the handful of household-name blue chips that dominate the region.
• A plain mandate with nowhere to hide: passively track the FTSE Developed Eurozone Index before fees. No factor tilts, no active overlay, no discretion.sec.gov
• Sits in the upper half of its index-wrapper peer group on the strength of that fee and a mandate it follows tightly.

Worth knowing

• FKU The 0.80% expense ratio sits at the high end for single-country Europe funds (DAX charges 0.20%, EWL 0.50%), and it's the main reason this one lands in the lower tier of the group.
• Thinly traded on a small asset base, so spreads can be wider and sizeable orders push the price around more than in the category's household names.
• One country, one market: UK equity only, so British economic and political news sets the tone. The factor screen also means it can look nothing like the headline UK index.

• FLEU Thinly traded. On smaller orders the bid-ask spread can cost more than a year of the 0.09% fee.
• It launched in 2017 as the Franklin FTSE Europe Hedged ETF and was renamed to the Eurozone strategy in 2023, so the early record reflects a different, hedged mandate.sec.gov
• Euro-currency countries only. The UK, Switzerland and the non-euro Nordics are out, and the euro's move against the dollar rides along unhedged.

Full FKU profile⁠

Full FLEU profile⁠