EMCS vs EMSF

EMCSAXtrackers MSCI Emerging Markets Climate Selection ETF

EMSFFMatthews Emerging Markets Sustainable Future Active ETF EMSF

In short

EMCS A screened take on emerging markets at core-tracker pricing: 0.15% a year for roughly 70 names carved out of a global selection index. Cheap enough to sit beside the plain-vanilla EM giants, narrow enough to look nothing like them.

EMSF Matthews made its name picking stocks in Asia and emerging markets. EMSF points that research at EM companies meeting its own ESG standards: fully active, measured against the MSCI Emerging Markets Index rather than bound to it.

Stated mandate

EMCS The fund seeks results generally corresponding, before fees and expenses, to the performance of its MSCI climate-selection index. The index represents large- and mid-capitalization companies across emerging-market countries and applies ESG and climate screens.

EMSF The Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing primarily in emerging-market common and preferred stocks that meet one or more of its ESG standards.

Why people hold it

• EMCS Costs 0.15% a year, well under the roughly 0.66% median for its EM index peer group and a fraction of EEM's 0.72%.
• Rules-based mandate, no discretion bolted on: it takes the emerging-market slice of a roughly 500-stock global selection index screened on climate and ESG criteria.sec.gov
• Concentrated on purpose: roughly 70 large- and mid-cap names instead of the several hundred in broad EM benchmarks, so the screens actually show up in the portfolio.
• Live since 2018 and one of the stronger implementations in its MSCI emerging-markets peer group.

• EMSF The sustainability screen is written into the mandate, not bolted on: the fund invests primarily in EM stocks meeting one or more of its ESG standards.
• Genuinely active. MSCI Emerging Markets is the yardstick, not the shopping list, so the manager can concentrate where the research points.
• Common and preferred shares are both in the toolkit, which matters in emerging markets where a company's preferred line is often the more accessible one.
• Run by Matthews Asia, a boutique whose whole business is Asia and emerging markets rather than a global shop with an EM sleeve.

Worth knowing

• EMCS Thinly traded next to the EM heavyweights like IEMG and EEM, so spreads can run wider and larger orders push the price around more.
• Renamed twice since launch (ESG Leaders, then Climate Selection, now Select), each time with index and objective changes. Read the current prospectus, not the old ticker's story.dws.com
• Cash comes once or twice a year rather than monthly, and a portfolio this narrow can drift from broad EM returns in either direction.

• EMSF At 0.79% a year, the fee sits above the typical active EM ETF, and the category's cheapest well-built options (AVEM, AVSE, DFEM) charge 0.33% to 0.39%.
• A small fund that trades lightly. Spreads tend to be wider than in the category's household names, so order type does real work here.
• Launched in 2023, so the record is short by design, and distributions arrive once or twice a year rather than monthly.

Full EMCS profile⁠

Full EMSF profile⁠