EMCS vs OAEM

EMCSAXtrackers MSCI Emerging Markets Climate Selection ETF

OAEMFOneAscent 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.

OAEM Most emerging-markets ESG funds are index trackers with a screen bolted on. OAEM goes the other way: an actively managed, concentrated portfolio shaped by OneAscent's faith-based Elevate screen, at a 1.25% net expense ratio.

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.

OAEM The fund's stated objective is to seek long-term capital appreciation.

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.

• OAEM Active, not an index with a filter. The team runs fundamental analysis down to a concentrated book of emerging-market companies rather than reweighting a standard EM benchmark.oneascent.com
• The values screen is the product, not a layer: OneAscent's Elevate process weighs business model, stakeholder policies and community impact, and only names that clear it get bought.oneascent.com
• A faith-based brief, narrower than the broad ESG and climate screens the category's index names run (EMXF 0.16%, ESGE 0.25%, EMCS 0.15%, none with a fee waiver in effect).oneascent.com
• Running since 2022 inside a standard 1940 Act ETF wrapper, one of five values-aligned ETFs from a single-focus Birmingham, Alabama shop.oneascent.com

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.

• OAEM Cost is the trade-off: 1.25% net (1.22% gross, no waiver in effect) sits above the median of the 12 funds in its category, where index rivals like EMCS charge 0.15%.
• Thinly traded with a modest asset base, so trading costs can run wider than at the category's index heavyweights.
• No index to hug. A concentrated active portfolio can diverge sharply from broad emerging-markets benchmarks, in either direction, and distributions land once or twice a year.oneascent.com

Full EMCS profile⁠

Full OAEM profile⁠