For starters, the PowerShares FTSE RAFI Emerging Markets Portfolio (NYSEArca: PXH) is the best performing broad emerging market ETF so far this year, rising 39.0% year-to-date. PXH tracks the FTSE RAFI Emerging Markets Index, a fundamentally-weighted ETF focusing on the virtues of book value, cash flow, sales and dividends.
[related_stories]Due to its indexing methodology, PXH leans toward the value style, with large-cap value making up 48.2% of its underlying holdings. The ETF is also overweight Brazil at 29.9% of its portfolio, followed by China 21.0% and Taiwan 11.3%. PXH still shows an attractive 11.1 P/E and a 1.0 P/B.
The Schwab Fundamental Emerging Markets Large Company ETF (NYSEArca: FNDE) has increased 34.6% year-to-date. FNDE tracks the Russell Fundamental Emerging Markets large Company Index, which selects, ranks and weights components based on fundamental factors like adjusted sales, retained operating cash flow and dividends plus buybacks.
The Schwab Fundamental Emerging Markets ETF also includes a hefty 55% tilt toward the large-cap value style, with a cheap 10.3 P/E and a 0.9 P/B. FNDE is less top heavy on its country allocations but overweights South Korea at 18.6%, along with Brazil 17.4%, China 15.7% and Russia 12.4%.
Additionally, the Global X SuperDividend Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: SDEM) advanced 27.8% year-to-date. SDEM includes 50 of the highest dividend yielding equities in the emerging markets. Consequently, the ETF also shows an attractive 5.57% 12-month yield. However, the fund is still rather small with $3.8 million in assets under management and an average daily volume of about 2,000 shares, so potential investors should use limit orders to better control trades.
The Global X option has a large 40% weight in large-cap value and 19% in mid-cap value. It shows a 10.0 P/E and a 1.1 P/B. The country weights more or less follow traditional ratios, with a big China position at 19.3%, followed by Brazil 15.2% and Russia 11.8%.