When it comes to investing in overseas assets, investors are becoming more finicky with their emerging market exchange traded fund exposure.
For instance, James Daniel of The Advisory Firm dropped two broad emerging market ETFs, WisdomTree Emerging Markets Equity Income Fund (NYSEArca: DEM) and iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: EEM), and replaced the positions with targeted China and India exposure through the iShares China Large-Cap ETF (NYSEArca: FXI) and iShares MSCI India ET (NYSEArca: INDA), reports Daisy Maxey for the Wall Street Journal.
Daniel argued that the broad DEM and EEM were “weighed down by underperforming countries.”
The broad ETFs include large tilts toward some of the worst performing areas of the emerging markets. For instance, EEM includes 7.6% in Brazil, 7.6% in South Africa and 4.1% in Russia. DEM holds a hefty 19.6% Russia, along with 10.3% South Africa and 8.3% Brazil.
Daniel is not alone as many ETF investors are fed up with broad emerging ETFs. Year-to-date, EEM has experienced a net $2.1 billion in outflows while DEM has seen $271 million in outflows, according to ETF.com. About $2.8 billion has been pulled out of diversified emerging market ETFs this year through the end of March, according to Morningstar data.
Alternatively, more are focusing on the good parts of the world. In China, the government is actively implementing reforms to shift its export-oriented economic model into more domestic consumption-based growth. Additionally, after India’s elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has enacted economic reforms that has made the country the next big area of growth.