Of course, these scenarios have a tendency to flip and that is what has happened this year. Much to the dismay of investors thinking of South Korea as a refuge, EWY ranks as one of the 10 worst non-leveraged ETFs to start 2014. [Conservative Emerging Markets Little Help to Investors]
That means a slight advantage to VWO, which has been slightly less bad than EEM and IEMG year-to-date.
Still, investors eager to get out of emerging markets ETFs this year are not grousing over which fund has South Korea exposure and which one does not. After ranking among the 10 worst offenders in terms of 2013 outflows, EEM and VWO are in the top-three this year.
Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF
ETF Trends editorial team contributed to this post. Tom Lydon’s clients own shares of EEM.