iShares launched five new ETFs today, as the recently acquired company moved into the market for international sector funds for the first time.

The new funds include four different international variations on the financial sector and one fund focused on the hot market for emerging market materials stocks.

The new funds are:

• iShares MSCI ACWI ex U.S. Financials Sector Index Fund (Nasdaq: AXFN)
• iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Financials Sector Index Fund (Nasdaq: EMFN)
• iShares MSCI Europe Financials Sector Index Fund (Nasdaq: EUFN)
• iShares MSCI Far East Financials Sector Index Fund (Nasdaq: FEFN)
• iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Materials Sector Index Fund (Nasdaq: EMMT)

The company called emerging market sectors an “underserved segment of the market,” although there are already a number of international sector ETFs in the market, including funds from WisdomTree, State Street Global Advisors and EGA Emerging Global Shares.

The new iShares are free-float-adjusted, market-cap-weighted sector funds tied to specific corners of the global market.

The funds have widely varying country concentrations. AXFN, which invests in financial names both in developed and emerging markets, holds a well-diversified portfolio, whose largest country concentration is in the UK (13 percent of the portfolio). EUFN's top allocation is also to the UK, at 29 percent of the portfolio, while FEFN's Far East tilt puts a huge concentration in Japan (63 percent of the portfolio). EMFN is fairly well diversified but holds 28 percent of its portfolio in China.

The outlier in the iShares launch is EMMT, the only materials fund covered. It invests in emerging market companies involved in the chemical, construction materials, containers and packaging, metals and mining, paper and forest product industries. From a country perspective, the fund’s top five country allocation includes Brazil at 30 percent of the holdings, South Africa at 13 percent, South Korea at 12 percent, Taiwan at 10 percent and China at 7 percent.

The all-world, Europe and Far East financial ETFs charge 48 basis points in annual expenses, undercutting competing funds from SSgA and WisdomTree by 2 and 10 basis points, respectively.

The two emerging market ETFs charge 0.72 percent in annual expenses. The materials fund is the first of its kind, while the financial sector fund is 0.13 percent cheaper than its closest competitor, the Emerging Global Financial Titans ETF (NYSEArca: EFN).

You can find the prospectus for the new iShares here.