These funds own shares of companies in China, Brazil, Russia and other developing countries.
Over the past decade SPDR Portfolio Emerging Markets (SPEM) has averaged a 6.4% annual return, to 15.3% for the S&P 500. Maybe it’s time for the less developed markets to do a little catching up.
SPEM owns shares of companies like Baidu, Vale and Gazprom. The fund is the cost efficiency leader here, with a ten-year price tag we put at $106. Vanguard’s much larger fund is not much more expensive.
Notably absent from the Best ETFs list is iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (EEM), once the biggest ETF in this territory. Its management fee, six times that of SPEM, disqualifies it.
Investors in index funds care about costs. They’ve taken money out of EEM and put it in cheap equivalents like the Vanguard fund and a discounted version of EEM that appears below with the ticker IEMG.
For an explanation of our rankings and a directory of fund categories, turn to Forbes Best ETFs.
*Honor Roll member. For the full list, turn to Best ETFs Honor Roll.
For a searchable directory of fund names and tickers, use the ETF Directory.
