BKEM vs FLLA

BKEMABNY Mellon Emerging Markets Equity ETF

FLLABFranklin FTSE Latin America 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.

FLLA A single-region slice of emerging markets: FLLA tracks the FTSE Latin America Capped Index, roughly 150 stocks, for 0.19% a year, while the typical fund in its emerging-markets peer group charges more than double that.

Stated mandate

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

FLLA The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the performance of the FTSE Latin America Capped Index through replication or representative sampling.

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.

• FLLA 0.19% a year against a peer-group median near 0.49%. Regional access is usually where fees creep up; here it doesn't.
• Roughly 150 names, and the index is capped, which limits how big any single stock can get inside the basket.
• Plain index plumbing from a 2018 launch: replication or representative sampling of a published FTSE benchmark, no derivatives layer, no active stock picking.
• Ranks in the upper half of its emerging-markets cohort, and pays out quarterly.

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.

• FLLA Thinly traded. Spreads can widen and large orders move the price more than they would in a heavily traded fund.
• One region, not a continent-spanning EM sleeve. Cohort peers like VEXC and XCEM spread across the whole emerging-markets universe; this one rides Latin America alone.
• A smaller fund by assets, not one of the giants of the category.

Full BKEM profile⁠

Full FLLA profile⁠