FTSE, or Financial Times Stock Index, now provides several indices covering a large part of the world with viable capital markets. And fortunately for investors, there are ETFs available for each of those indices so that you can participate in stock market growth in each of the covered areas. So are FTSE ETFs a useful wealth building tool for the average investor?

As one might expect, the primary and most extensive market covered by FTSE indices is the London Stock Exchange. You can buy 100 stocks, 250 stocks, buy short, buy top dividend payers and more. In other words, you can trade the top stocks in the London Stock Exchange in a variety of ways using the FTSE indices and their corresponding ETFs - many of them from iShares, some from Lyxor and db x-trackers.

However FTSE ETFs also specialize in Emerging Markets, and offer indices that track China 25 equities (db x-trackers FTSE/Xinhua China 25), BRIC 50 equities for Brazil, Russia, India and China (iShares FTSE BRIC 50), the JSE - Johannesburg Stock Exchange (Lyxor ETF South Africa) for South Africa, FTSE Vietnam index and more. FTSE ETFs cover the broader Eurozone as well with a variety of offerings, including the Italy 30 index (PowerShares FTSE RAFI Italy 30), Eurozone Index (XACT FTSE RAFI Fundamental Euro), Developed Europe Mid-Small (PowerShares FTSE RAFI Developed Europe Mid-Small) and others. In Asia, FTSE ETFs offers a Japan Index (Lyxor ETF FTSE RAFI Japan GBP) as well.

FTSE ETFs also specialize in dividend stocks and the iShares FTSE UK Dividend Plus GBP is one such ETF to help you focus on dividends from the London Stock Exchange. Additionally FTSE offers Industrial and Resources focused indices as well to provide a sector oriented tracking index and corresponding ETF.

Overall FTSE offers a strong focus in the Eurozone and a variety of offerings for the Emerging markets that makes it a terrific addition to your portfolio for international investing.

As you may have realized in your investing experience, asset allocation is an important component of overall investing strategy. A percentage of your portfolio must be allocated to emerging countries and some to Eurozone. For Euro based investing, FTSE based ETFs are among the very best, and for select emerging markets, FTSE offers very useful proxies. Use a select combination of these ETFs to add stability and growth to your portfolio.