EEMV vs FLN

EEMVAiShares MSCI Emerging Markets Min Vol Factor ETF

FLNFFirst Trust Latin America AlphaDEX Fund

In short

EEMV Emerging markets with the volume turned down. Since 2011, EEMV has tracked MSCI's minimum-volatility EM index, holding roughly 300 stocks picked for steadiness rather than size, at 0.25% a year.

FLN Most Latin America funds just buy the region's biggest companies. FLN runs Latin American stocks through First Trust's AlphaDEX growth-and-value screen first, then holds the roughly 60 names that survive it.

Stated mandate

EEMV The fund seeks to track an index of emerging-market equities selected for minimum-volatility characteristics.

FLN The fund seeks investment results that generally correspond to the price and yield of the Nasdaq AlphaDEX Latin America Index before fees and expenses.

Why people hold it

• EEMV At 0.25%, it carries the lowest fee in its emerging-markets factor cohort, undercutting EELV at 0.29% and ECOW at 0.70%, and sitting well below the group median.
• Live since 2011 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund: a long public track record of running the min vol playbook in the world's bumpiest equity markets.
• About 300 emerging-market names, chosen by published index rules rather than a manager's hunch, so what you own is auditable rather than discretionary.
• Stands among the stronger implementations in its emerging-markets factor peer group on our review, largely on cost and issuer staying power.

• FLN Rules-based stock picking, not a market-cap copy: the AlphaDEX screen ranks stocks on growth and value factors and builds the index from the winners.
• Roughly 60 holdings, so the screen actually shows up in the portfolio instead of getting diluted across hundreds of names.
• Live since 2011, giving it a long public record across the region's commodity and currency cycles.
• Distributions land quarterly, and the mandate is a clean single-region equity sleeve: Latin America, nothing else bolted on.

Worth knowing

• EEMV Minimum volatility is a construction rule, not a floor. The index aims for smaller swings; emerging-market currency, country and political risk still ride along.
• Screening for low volatility pulls country and sector weights away from a cap-weighted EM benchmark, so it can move to a different rhythm than the headline index.
• Volume is moderate rather than torrential, so execution habits (limit orders, skipping the opening minutes) matter more here than with a mega-cap index fund.

• FLN The screen carries a price: 0.80% a year, well above what plain index-tracking ETFs in its peer group typically charge. That is a permanent drag on the strategy.
• Small asset base and light trading volume, so spreads can be wider than on the region's household-name funds and large orders need care.
• One region, one currency basket of risks. Latin American politics and exchange rates drive results here in a way a global fund would smooth out.

Full EEMV profile⁠

Full FLN profile⁠