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The Schwab Fundamental Emerging Markets Equity ETF (FNDE) made its debut on 08/13/2013, and is a smart beta exchange traded fund that provides broad exposure to the Broad Emerging Market ETFs category of the market.
What Are Smart Beta ETFs?
Market cap weighted indexes were created to reflect the market, or a specific segment of the market, and the ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on this strategy.
Market cap weighted indexes offer a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns, and are a good option for investors who believe in market efficiency.
There are some investors, though, who think it's possible to beat the market with great stock selection; this group likely invests in another class of funds known as smart beta, which track non-cap weighted strategies.
Non-cap weighted indexes try to choose stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance, which is based on specific fundamental characteristics, or a mix of other such characteristics.
Methodologies like equal-weighting, one of the simplest options out there, fundamental weighting, and volatility/momentum based weighting are all choices offered to investors in this space, but not all of them can deliver superior returns.
Fund Sponsor & Index
FNDE is managed by Charles Schwab, and this fund has amassed over $6.38 billion, which makes it one of the largest ETFs in the Broad Emerging Market ETFs. This particular fund seeks to match the performance of the Russell RAFI Emerging Markets Large Co. Index (Net) before fees and expenses.
The RAFI Fundamental High Liquidity Emerging Markets Index measures the performance of large sized companies, based on their fundamental size and weight, in emerging market countries.
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.
With on par with most peer products in the space, this ETF has annual operating expenses of 0.39%.
It's 12-month trailing dividend yield comes in at 4.65%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
ETFs offer diversified exposure and thus minimize single stock risk, but it is still important to delve into a fund's holdings before investing. Most ETFs are very transparent products and many disclose their holdings on a daily basis.
Looking at individual holdings, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing accounts for about 4.25% of total assets, followed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and China Construction Bank Corp H.