This article is part of Morningstar's Guide to Passive Investing, helping investors make smart choices to meet their long-term investment goals.
Jose Garcia Zarate: Exchange-traded funds are index tracking vehicles. This means that they replicate the performance of a benchmark. European ETFs can employ physical or synthetic replication methodologies.
A physical ETF replicates the performance of the index by physically holding all or part of the index constituents. Meanwhile, a synthetic ETF replicates the performance of the index via swap agreements. This normally means that the synthetic ETFs hold a basket of securities which may not be related to the index they track. And what they do is exchange the performance of this basket for the performance of the index via a swap contract with a counterparty, which in most cases, is an investment bank.
Some investors may not care about the way that ETF goes about replicating the performance of the index. However, others may have a particular preference.
The good thing is that ETF providers are very transparent when it comes to replication and will explicitly disclose whether an ETF is physical or synthetic in the kit and prospectus.