ASEA vs VEXC

ASEACGlobal X FTSE Southeast Asia ETF

VEXCAVanguard Emerging Markets Ex-China ETF

In short

ASEA Southeast Asia in one ticket. ASEA tracks the FTSE/ASEAN 40, a basket of roughly 40 of the region's largest listed companies, and has run that same mandate since 2011. A narrow regional slice, not a broad emerging-markets fund.

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

ASEA The fund seeks to track generally the price and yield performance of the FTSE/ASEAN 40 Index, before fees and expenses.

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

• ASEA One trade buys roughly 40 large ASEAN-listed companies, weighted by a published FTSE index rather than a manager's calls.globalxetfs.com
• Running since 2011 on the same index and the same regional mandate. What the name says is what the fund has always done.globalxetfs.com
• Plain-vanilla plumbing: a registered 1940 Act fund tracking a named, rules-based benchmark (ASEA40WN), so the roster turns over when the index does.globalxetfs.com

• 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

• ASEA 0.65% a year is specialist pricing, above what broad, plain-index ETFs typically charge. That gap is the toll for the regional focus.
• Thinly traded next to mainstream index funds, so the bid-ask spread is part of your real cost, not just the expense ratio.
• About 40 stocks in one region: single-name concentration, local market swings and foreign-currency moves all land directly in the return.

• 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 ASEA profile⁠

Full VEXC profile⁠