Exchange-traded funds are actually intended to spread the risk through many small share investments.

In the USA, the provider Roundhill now wants to launch ETFs that only invest in a single share.

The TRAX Samsung Shares and TRAX Saudi Aramco Shares are intended to track the price development of the respective shares.

Roundhill filed a filing with the SEC last week.

The shares of both companies are not listed in the United States and there are no corresponding depository receipts.

As a result, American investors have little or no access to these stocks. Observers say the so-called single-stock ETFs could offer easy access – an innovation in the increasingly saturated industry.

The first single security ETFs made their debut in the US in July.

As a rule, they offer the opportunity to leverage the investment or to sell the security short.

Roundhill goes a step further in that the proposed ETF would now track performance one-to-one.

In practice, these would mainly enter into bilateral earnings exchange contracts (swaps) and invest in financial instruments with correlating earnings, but could also buy the underlying stock.

However, it is not clear whether the SEC will approve the ETF.

Foreign companies that do not offer depositary receipts are not bound by US reporting standards.

The planned products could be seen as circumventing listing regulations, says Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, and could also open a back door for Chinese stocks that have been "delisted" in the US due to non-compliance with accounting standards.

The SEC has not yet issued a statement.