A smart beta exchange traded fund, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Multifactor ETF (EMGF) debuted on 12/08/2015, and offers broad exposure to the Broad Emerging Market ETFs category of the market.
What Are Smart Beta ETFs?
Products that are based on market cap weighted indexes, which are strategies designed to reflect a specific market segment or the market as a whole, have traditionally dominated the ETF industry.
Because market cap weighted indexes provide a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns, they work well for investors who believe in market efficiency.
On the other hand, some investors who believe that it is possible to beat the market by superior stock selection opt to invest in another class of funds that track non-cap weighted strategies--popularly known as smart beta.
Based on specific fundamental characteristics, or a combination of such, these indexes attempt to pick stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance.
While this space offers a number of choices to investors, including simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies, not all these strategies have been able to deliver superior results.
Fund Sponsor & Index
Because the fund has amassed over $874.37 million, this makes it one of the larger ETFs in the Broad Emerging Market ETFs. EMGF is managed by Blackrock. This particular fund seeks to match the performance of the MSCI Emerging Markets Diversified Multiple-Factor Index before fees and expenses.
The MSCI Emerging Market Diversified Multiple-Factor Index is composed of stocks of large and mid-capitalization companies in emerging markets that have favourable exposure to target style factors subject to constraints.
Cost & Other Expenses
Investors should also pay attention to an ETF's expense ratio. Lower cost products will produce better results than those with a higher cost, assuming all other metrics remain the same.
Annual operating expenses for EMGF are 0.45%, which makes it on par with most peer products in the space.
It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 2.67%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
While ETFs offer diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk, a deep look into a fund's holdings is a valuable exercise. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.
When you look at individual holdings, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing accounts for about 4.79% of the fund's total assets, followed by China Construction Bank Corp H and Tencent Holdings Ltd.