AFK vs VEXC

AFKDVanEck Africa Index ETF

VEXCAVanguard Emerging Markets Ex-China ETF

In short

AFK Africa barely registers inside a standard emerging-markets fund. AFK makes it the whole trip: a 2008-vintage index fund holding roughly 80 African companies and tracking the MVIS GDP Africa Index.

VEXC Vanguard's emerging markets, China removed. Same index-tracking discipline, 0.07% a year, a fraction of what the typical EM fund charges. Ex-China is no longer a niche idea; this is the cheap way to own it.

Stated mandate

AFK The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the MVIS® GDP Africa Index.

VEXC The fund invests in emerging-market stocks while excluding China and seeks to closely track the FTSE Emerging ex China Index.

Why people hold it

• AFK One ticker, one continent: roughly 80 companies tracking the MVIS GDP Africa Index rather than a single-country wager.
• Live since 2008, so it has traded through commodity booms, currency shocks and multiple global selloffs. Rare longevity for a market this hard to reach.
• Moderately traded for a frontier-flavored corner of the market, so building or unwinding a position is not an expedition.

• VEXC Charges 0.07% a year against a 0.49% median for emerging-markets funds, and undercuts the other top-graded names in the group, including XCEM at 0.16% and BKEM at 0.11%.
• Rules-based, not opinion-based: it tracks the FTSE Emerging ex China Index, so the China carve-out is written into the mandate rather than left to a manager's discretion.vanguard.com
• Splitting China out of emerging markets puts the sizing decision in your hands instead of accepting whatever weight a broad EM index assigns. Pays quarterly.vanguard.com
• Ranks among the strongest implementations in its emerging-markets peer group on the things we measure: cost, mandate clarity, index discipline.

Worth knowing

• AFK 0.76% a year sits well above the median for its emerging-markets peer group, and broad EM index peers like VEXC and BKEM charge a small fraction of that.
• A concentrated regional slice: roughly 80 stocks exposed to currency moves, commodity prices and single-country politics, a narrower base than a diversified EM fund.
• Distributions land annually or semiannually, not quarterly, so any cash arrives in lumps.

• VEXC Launched in 2025 and still thinly traded, so it lacks the trading heft of the giant EM funds. Spreads can be wider than the Vanguard name suggests.
• Excluding an entire country by rule means results will drift away from broad EM funds, in both directions, depending on how China does.
• The remaining basket screens more concentrated than most funds in the category, so a handful of countries and sectors drive much of the outcome.

Full AFK profile⁠

Full VEXC profile⁠