Active Emerging Market ETF Unveiled
Newcomer Avantis focuses on factors in emerging markets in its first fund.
Yesterday, ETF newcomer Avantis launched its first fund via American Century’s exemptive relief. The Avantis Emerging Markets Equity ETF (AVEM) is actively managed and takes a factor-based approach.
AVEM comes with an expense ratio of 0.33% and lists on the NYSE Arca.
The fund selects its holdings mainly from the components of the MSCI Emerging Markets IMI Index and focuses on stocks with smaller market capitalizations, higher profitability and value characteristics, according to its prospectus.
There were really only three other ETFs that are actively managed prior to AVEM’s launch, with two of them taking factor-based approaches to the broad emerging market space. The $84 million First Trust RiverFront Dynamic Emerging Markets ETF (RFEM) has an expense ratio of 0.95%, while the $25 million WisdomTree Emerging Markets Multifactor Fund (EMMF) charges 0.48%. AVEM undercuts both of those.
New iBond ETF
Also on Thursday, iShares rolled out another addition to its iBonds ETF family. The iShares iBonds Dec 2029 Term Corporate ETF (IBDU) primarily invests in investment-grade corporate debt maturing in the year 2029.
IBDU has an expense ratio of 0.10% and lists on the NYSE Arca.
With this latest addition, the current family of investment-grade corporate iBonds covers the years 2019 through 2029.
Contact Heather Bell at [email protected]
