GWX vs SCZ

GWXAState Street SPDR S&P International Small Cap ETF

SCZAiShares MSCI EAFE Small-Cap ETF

In short

GWX A 2007-vintage way to own the small stuff overseas: about 2,100 developed-market companies, filtered by a hard USD 2 billion size ceiling written right into the index name.

SCZ The purist's take on foreign small caps: developed markets only, outside the US and Canada. Trading since 2007, SCZ follows the MSCI EAFE Small Cap Index, so Japan, Europe and Australia are in and emerging markets stay out.

Stated mandate

GWX The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the total return performance of the S&P Developed Ex-U.S. Under USD2 Billion Index.

SCZ The fund seeks to track an index of small-cap equities from developed markets outside the United States and Canada, providing international diversification and exposure to overseas small-cap stocks.

Why people hold it

• GWX The size cut is absolute, not relative: developed ex-US companies under USD 2 billion, so the portfolio stays in genuinely small territory instead of drifting up with the market.ssga.com
• About 2,100 holdings spread across developed markets outside the US, so no single company or country carries the fund.
• Trading since 2007, it has one of the longer track records in international small caps, spanning the 2008 crash and everything since.
• A plain index tracker with no style drift: what it holds lines up with the mandate it advertises, and it sits in the upper half of its peer group.

• SCZ A clean, literal mandate: small companies in developed markets outside the US and Canada, with nothing else slipping into the basket.ishares.com
• It follows its stated index closely, one of the tighter implementations in the international small-cap group.
• Live since December 2007 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, the kind of scale that supports steady day-to-day liquidity.
• The 0.40% fee lands right at the median for its category, so the EAFE-specific screen doesn't carry a premium price.

Worth knowing

• GWX The 0.40% fee sits right at the category median, but broad rivals like VSS and SCHC charge a fraction of that.
• Small foreign companies are a bumpy corner of the market, and the mandate says nothing about hedging, so the dollar moves your returns too.
• Moderately traded rather than a volume leader in its category, which can mean wider spreads than the busiest funds in the group.

• SCZ Median is not cheap here. VSS and SCHC charge 0.06% for their own ex-US small-cap baskets, several times less than SCZ's 0.40%.
• Developed markets only. Emerging-market small caps sit outside the mandate, unlike all-world peers such as VSS.
• The index is unhedged, so currency moves land on top of small-cap price swings, a bumpier ride than developed large-cap benchmarks.

Full GWX profile⁠

Full SCZ profile⁠