The sprawling reach of exchange-traded funds has so far left initial public offerings virtually untouched, but the performance of the sole fund to focus on new stocks has proven worthy of investors' attention – and could well encourage imitators.

The pioneering fund, First Trust US IPO Index ETF, tracks an index of 100 US IPOs and spin-offs developed by Josef Schuster, founder of IPOX Schuster LLC, an IPO research and investment firm based in Chicago. It climbed to an all-time high earlier in December, and has risen 26% in 2012 through Friday, towering over a 12% gain for the Standard & Poor's 500. Over three years, the fund has returned 16% on an annualised basis, topping 10% for the S&P 500.