April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Van Eck Global, the New York-based investment manager, will introduce an exchange-traded fund Monday that invests in Russian companies, a reflection of specialization in the growing ETF market.

The Market Vectors-Russia ETF is the first Russia ETF listed in the U.S., Van Eck said today in a statement. It will trade on the New York Stock Exchange using the symbol RSX. Assets in ETFs have grown fivefold in the past five years to more than $380 billion, and the funds are becoming more specialized.

The fund is designed to replicate price and performance of the DAXglobal Russia+ Index of 30 companies based in Russia and traded globally. The index is maintained by Deutsche Boerse AG.

Van Eck introduced Market Vectors ETF products in May and offers funds in investment areas such as gold and steel.

ETFs, like mutual funds, are designed to mimic performance of a basket of equities such as the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. Unlike mutual funds, which are priced daily after the end of each trading session, ETF prices change continually as they are bought and sold throughout the day like stocks.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jenny Strasburg in New York at jstrasburg@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 25, 2007 16:42 EDT