An Undervalued BRIC ETF?

Investing in the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) has been hot again, particularly with Brazil and China leading the way. ETFs like iShares MSCI Brazil Index ETF

, iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index ETF

and PowerShares India Portfolio

have done extremely well this year, as money continues to move into these countries. There has been one of these countries that has underperformed this year, and that's Russia. There's been quite a bit of talk recently that Russia could be the most undervalued out of the 4, and investors could look for a way to capture this undervalued growth, if they believe in this thesis. Market Vectors Russia ETF

is around $2 off of its 52 week high, while the others are just pennies away. Looking at this year to date

you can see the ETF hasn't done much. It's more or less in line with the broader markets, not nearly the performance the other countries are giving you. There are plenty of reasons for this, such as the continued political uncertainty, the worries over the global economy, and oil prices, which are now only just starting to gain traction, along with the rest of the other commodities. John Kleinheinz of Kleinheinz Capital Partners seems to agree with this thesis, as evidenced by his

to investors. Of the top 10 holdings in the RSX, only one is publicly traded in the U.S., Mobile Telesystems

. The rest are traded abroad. It's a very liquid ETF, with just under $2 billion in assets, and a 0.69% expense ratio. If investors believes that Russia is undervalued compared to the other BRIC countries, than investing in this low fee ETF may be the way to go. It mitigates risk, while allowing investors to capture the upside from Moscow. Disclosure: no positions in companies mentioned