BKEM vs BKF

BKEMABNY Mellon Emerging Markets Equity ETF

BKFDiShares MSCI BIC ETF

In short

BKEM The whole emerging world, priced like an afterthought. BNY Mellon charges 0.11% to hold well over a thousand large- and mid-cap stocks across developing markets. Broad, cheap, and very quiet.

BKF A survivor of the BRIC trade. Launched in 2007, BKF now packs just Brazil, India and China into one ticker: a concentrated take on three big emerging economies instead of the whole developing world.

Stated mandate

BKEM The fund is designed to follow the performance of an emerging-markets large- and mid-cap equity index.

BKF The fund seeks to track an index composed of Brazilian, Indian, and Chinese equities and offers targeted exposure to those three major economies.

Why people hold it

• BKEM 0.11% a year puts it near the bottom of the emerging-markets fee shelf, well under what the typical fund in the category charges.
• Roughly 1,800 holdings, so you own the mid-cap tail of emerging markets, not just the handful of mega-caps that dominate the better-known indexes.
• Buys the full emerging-markets basket rather than carving out China the way top-rated peers XCEM and VEXC do. One allocation decision you do not have to make.
• Plain indexing, run the same way since the 2020 launch: it hews closely to its Solactive benchmark instead of drifting off-mandate.

• BKF Three economies, one ticker. The MSCI BIC index keeps it to Brazil, India and China, with no Taiwan, Korea or Mexico in the mix.ishares.com
• Roughly 700 stocks across those three markets, so it reads as a broad slice of each country rather than a short list of mega-caps.
• Trading since 2007 under the iShares roof, it has tracked its index through several full emerging-market cycles.

Worth knowing

• BKEM Thinly traded. Spreads can widen, so order size and timing matter more here than with the category's household names.
• A small fund next to the emerging-markets giants, which is worth knowing if scale and deep secondary-market liquidity are on your checklist.
• Emerging-markets equity carries currency and single-country political swings; 1,800 names spread that around but do not erase it. Distributions come quarterly.

• BKF The 0.72% expense ratio sits above the typical emerging-markets fund, and broad EM rivals like BKEM (0.11%) and VEXC (0.07%) charge a fraction of that.
• It is a small fund that trades thinly, so spreads can run wider than at the giant EM index funds.
• Three countries means concentration. A rough patch in China or Brazil has no 20-country EM lineup around it to soften the blow.

Full BKEM profile⁠

Full BKF profile⁠