Blog

Horizons launches Canadian equity smart beta ETF (ETF Strategy (Online))

Horizons ETFs has launched the Horizons Inovestor Canadian Equity Index ETF (INOC CN) on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). The ETF gives access to Canadian equities that offer high exposure to the value and quality factors.

The fund, listed on TSX, offers exposure to high-quality companies with attractive valuations.

The ETF tracks the Nasdaq Inovestor CanadaIndex, which was jointly designed by Nasdaq and Inovestor.

The index provides exposure to 25 high-quality Canadian large-cap equities that are reasonably priced and receive the best rankings using Inovestor’s proprietary stock selection model.

Index constituents are equally weighted and rebalanced quarterly.

Steve Hawkins, president and CEO of Horizons ETFs, commented: “As Canadian equities continue to rise, investors are increasingly looking for new ways to search for quality issuers at reasonable prices. INOC harnesses the stock selection power of Inovestor’s StockPointer, which has been one of Canada’s largest stock selection software services for financial advisors during the past two decades.”

INOC uses a six-step investment process that begins with screening the Canadian universe of stocks based on economic profit – a form of residual wealth that occurs when a company pays back its cost of capital from operating profit, adjusted for tax. Economic profit is one way of determining whether capital invested in a company has generated value for investors.

Once the top 100 securities by economic profit are selected, sectors are weighted and the top 25 securities are selected using their StockPointer scores – a 50/50 combination of performance and risk metrics.

Pascal LeFrancois, president and CEO of Inovestor, commented: “Having spent decades perfecting our technique of selecting and ranking equities within our software for advisors and firms, we are excited to be relaying our expertise in investment metrics within an ETF that our clients and the broader public can invest in. Many investors have struggled to determine the true value of various Canadian securities and we believe our investment process helps choose quality stocks at a reasonable price.”

INOC has annual charges of 0.50%.

Share