BRICs can help you build your portfolio

— -- Q: Is there a good way to monitor and invest in the BRIC countries?

A: Investors looking for better opportunities than those offered by the slowing U.S. economy are getting interested in the BRICs, acronym for the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

The BRIC nations are viewed as the top sources of economic growth for the near future.

Certainly, you could track the stock market indexes in each of those countries.USATODAY.com provides an easy way to keep tabs on them. Go to money.usatoday.com; under the big green banner, hover over the word Markets, and then click on the link to World Stocks. On this page, you'll find major stock market indexes for all these countries and more.

But, if you want to track the four countries' markets in one number, consider watching the value of an exchange traded fund (ETF) that owns stocks from all the four countries.

A number of companies have built indexes that track the BRIC stock exchanges. And the easiest way to follow the value of those indexes is by following the ETFs that invest in the indexes. You can also invest in BRIC ETFs directly because they trade and are quoted just like stocks.

There are several BRIC ETFs, including SPDR S&P BRIC 40 bik, iShares MSCI BRIC Index bkf and Claymore/BNY BRIC eeb. You can get up-to-date prices on these ETFs by clicking on the symbols in this column or going to money.usatoday.com and entering the symbols in any Get a Quote box.

Matt Krantz is a financial markets reporter at USA TODAY. He answers a different reader question every weekday in his Ask Matt column at money.usatoday.com. To submit a question, e-mail Matt at mkrantz@usatoday.com. Click here to see previous Ask Matt columns.