EMCS vs FRDM

EMCSAXtrackers MSCI Emerging Markets Climate Selection ETF

FRDMCFreedom 100 Emerging Markets ETF

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.

FRDM Most emerging-markets funds buy the whole market and move on. FRDM tracks the Life + Liberty Freedom 100 Emerging Markets Index instead: a passive, rules-based screen that lands on roughly 100 stocks.

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.

FRDM The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the total return of the Life + Liberty Freedom 100 Emerging Markets Index using a passive indexing approach.

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.

• FRDM Not the cap-weighted default. A passive index build that ends at about 100 emerging-markets stocks, so the screen actually shapes what you own.
• Trading since 2019 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund, so this is an idea with an operating history behind it, not a launch-week pitch.
• Stays in its lane: a 1940 Act fund holding emerging-markets equity, closely matching the index it names in its prospectus. Distributions come quarterly.

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.

• FRDM The screen has a price tag: 0.49% a year versus a 0.19% median across its emerging-markets peer group, with VWO and SCHE sitting at 0.06%.
• About 100 names, not thousands. Country and single-stock swings land harder here than in a whole-market emerging-markets basket.
• Moderately traded rather than one of the category's volume giants, so spreads deserve a look before you place an order.

Full EMCS profile⁠

Full FRDM profile⁠