AVSE vs JEMA

AVSEAAvantis Responsible Emerging Markets Equity ETF

JEMAAJPMorgan ActiveBuilders Emerging Markets Equity ETF

In short

AVSE Avantis's emerging markets workhorse with a values filter bolted on: the same profitability tilt and thousands-of-stocks build as its flagship EM fund, at the same 0.33% fee, minus the issuers its team flags on ESG grounds.

JEMA Active emerging-markets management priced like an index fund: J.P. Morgan blends its own country, region and style EM strategies into one roughly 500-stock portfolio built to keep the MSCI EM index's sector and country risk shape.

Stated mandate

AVSE The fund is an actively managed emerging-markets equity strategy that seeks to identify securities with higher expected returns while excluding issuers that raise concerns under the portfolio team's environmental, social, and governance evaluation.

JEMA Seeks long-term capital appreciation through a portfolio of emerging-market equities.

Why people hold it

• AVSE Charges 0.33% a year, roughly half the typical fee among actively managed emerging markets funds. The cost drag stays out of the way of the strategy.
• The screen trims rather than concentrates: the portfolio still spans thousands of emerging markets stocks, not a short list of approved names.avantisinvestors.com
• Active in the Avantis sense: a systematic tilt toward more profitable companies, not a manager's hunches about which stocks pop next.
• Priced level with Avantis's mainstream EM funds (AVEM, AVXC) and JPMorgan's JEMA at 0.33%, and one of the stronger builds in the active EM group.

• JEMA 0.33% a year, about half the 0.65% median for active EM funds and level with the cheapest names in the group (AVEM, AVXC, AVSE).
• Not one manager's hunch: the portfolio stitches together a range of J.P. Morgan's actively managed EM strategies across countries, regions and styles.sec.gov
• Active tilts, benchmark shape. It overweights and underweights countries and sectors versus the MSCI EM index while aiming to hold similar sector and geographic risk.sec.gov
• A multi-billion-dollar fund that stands among the strongest implementations in the active EM group on cost and structure.

Worth knowing

• AVSE Thinly traded next to the index-fund giants of emerging markets, so bid-ask spreads can widen and larger orders need care.
• The ESG exclusions are the portfolio team's own judgment calls, so the holdings and the results will drift from a plain broad EM benchmark.
• Emerging markets equity brings currency swings and country-level political risk, and this fund holds that exposure directly. Pays quarterly.

• JEMA Active means results ride on the adviser's calls, and the fund has only been trading since 2021, a short record for an EM strategy.sec.gov
• Full-market EM exposure runs hot: volatility screens as the softer part of the picture next to peers, the trade-off for staying in the whole asset class.
• Moderately traded rather than a tape giant, and cash comes back once or twice a year, not monthly.

Full AVSE profile⁠

Full JEMA profile⁠