EMKT vs JEMA

EMKTCLazard Emerging Markets Opportunities ETF

JEMAAJPMorgan ActiveBuilders Emerging Markets Equity ETF

In short

EMKT Old-school value hunting in emerging markets: Lazard's managers buy non-US companies they read as cheap on earnings, cash flow, or asset values. A human-picked portfolio with roots in 2013, not an index clone.

JEMA Active emerging-markets management priced like an index fund: J.P. Morgan blends its own country, region and style EM strategies into one roughly 500-stock portfolio built to keep the MSCI EM index's sector and country risk shape.

Stated mandate

EMKT The Portfolio seeks long-term capital appreciation. It primarily invests in equity securities, principally common stocks, of non-U.S. companies whose main activities are in emerging markets and that the manager considers undervalued based on earnings, cash flow, or asset values.

JEMA Seeks long-term capital appreciation through a portfolio of emerging-market equities.

Why people hold it

• EMKT Real stock picking: managers target EM companies they judge undervalued on earnings, cash flow, or asset values, so the lineup can look nothing like a cap-weighted benchmark.
• The strategy dates to 2013, so it has been run through multiple emerging-market cycles rather than launched into whatever theme is hot this year.
• Simple plumbing: a standard 1940 Act equity fund holding common stocks of non-US companies, not a derivatives wrapper you need a manual to decode.

• JEMA 0.33% a year, about half the 0.65% median for active EM funds and level with the cheapest names in the group (AVEM, AVXC, AVSE).
• Not one manager's hunch: the portfolio stitches together a range of J.P. Morgan's actively managed EM strategies across countries, regions and styles.sec.gov
• Active tilts, benchmark shape. It overweights and underweights countries and sectors versus the MSCI EM index while aiming to hold similar sector and geographic risk.sec.gov
• A multi-billion-dollar fund that stands among the strongest implementations in the active EM group on cost and structure.

Worth knowing

• EMKT At 0.74% it runs above the typical active EM fund, and the cohort's strongest-rated names (AVEM, JEMA, AVXC) charge 0.33%. It sits in the lower half of that peer group.
• Thin trading volume and a modest asset base mean bid-ask spreads matter more here than in the giant EM index funds.
• Cash distributions arrive once or twice a year at most; the stated goal is long-term capital appreciation, not income.

• JEMA Active means results ride on the adviser's calls, and the fund has only been trading since 2021, a short record for an EM strategy.sec.gov
• Full-market EM exposure runs hot: volatility screens as the softer part of the picture next to peers, the trade-off for staying in the whole asset class.
• Moderately traded rather than a tape giant, and cash comes back once or twice a year, not monthly.

Full EMKT profile⁠

Full JEMA profile⁠