Active emerging-markets ETFs that did not look like the MSCI index did not finish with it

Over the 12 months through Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, the typical actively managed emerging-markets stock ETF finished with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. The median total return of 27 exchange-traded funds in etf.net's Emerging Markets Active Equity category was 14.01%, after fees, and the median fee is 0.65% a year. The index returned 14.05%, MSCI reported.

U.S. stocks and bonds did not keep up over those same 12 months. On the same total-return basis, State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF SPY returned 12.4%. iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF AGG lost 0.3%.

These funds are built to choose companies rather than hold an index.

Avantis looked like the MSCI index

Avantis Emerging Markets Equity ETF AVEM held $26.7 billion of the category's $42.9 billion. It charges 0.33%. Its total return over the 12 months, after that fee, was 14.08%.

In its quarterly fact sheet dated Sept. 30, Avantis listed Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing at 12.67% of AVEM. SK hynix and Samsung Electronics sat behind it. Those three holdings were 24.2% of the fund.

Taiwan and South Korea were 49.6% of the fund on that fact sheet, and 50.3% of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

"Index concentration is unprecedented: the top five stocks now represent approximately 35% of the MSCI EM benchmark," Laurence Bensafi, managing director and portfolio manager, deputy head of emerging market equities at RBC Global Asset Management (UK) Limited, wrote in a Sept. 15 outlook.

Information technology was 38.66% of the fund, 2.93 percentage points under the MSCI Emerging Markets IMI. That is the broader benchmark named in the fact sheet, and it includes smaller companies.

AVEM finished with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index because it looked like that index.

Nomura's focused fund and a small-cap fund

Nomura Focused Emerging Markets Equity ETF EMEQ returned 50.5%, the best of the 27. Its July 29 prospectus says the fund is non-diversified and, as of that date, was holding a substantial share of its assets in a limited number of securities. It charges 0.85%.

Avantis Emerging Markets Small Cap Equity ETF AVEE returned 0.6%, the worst of the 27. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index is a large- and mid-cap benchmark. AVEE is a small-cap fund.

The funds that did not look like the index did not finish with it. The two above had the best result in the category and the worst. A holder whose fund looked like the index finished those 12 months with it.