PEMX vs WCME

PEMXCPutnam Emerging Markets Ex-China ETF

WCMEDFirst Trust WCM Developing World Equity ETF

In short

PEMX China swamps most emerging-market funds. PEMX cuts it out entirely and runs an active, roughly 60-stock book across the rest of the developing world, priced well below the typical active EM manager.

WCME Emerging markets with conviction: roughly 30 stocks hand-picked by boutique manager WCM, with frontier names in bounds. Built to look nothing like a broad developing-world index fund.

Stated mandate

PEMX The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation. It invests primarily in emerging-market common stocks outside China and Hong Kong, using active fundamental research to identify companies with favorable investment potential.

WCME The Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation. It normally invests at least 80% of its net assets in equity securities of companies located in developing countries, using WCM’s bottom-up fundamental research process.

Why people hold it

• PEMX 0.70% a year against a 0.95% median for its active peer group. Cheap freight for a stock-picking mandate.
• About 60 names, not 600. Concentrated enough that the managers' calls actually show up in the portfolio.
• Does what the label says: an ex-China portfolio measured against the MSCI Emerging Markets ex-China Index, with no China drift in the holdings.franklintempleton.com
• Trading since 2023 under Franklin Templeton, and it sits in the upper half of the small group of active EM ex-China funds we track.

• WCME Genuinely active: about 30 holdings chosen by bottom-up fundamental research, not index weights. Real concentration, not closet indexing with a higher fee.
• Wide mandate: at least 80% of net assets in developing-country equities, with frontier markets inside the lines and no market-cap box.sec.gov
• Full opportunity set. Peers like EMM and PEMX screen China out by rule; here China exposure is a stock-by-stock decision the manager makes.
• The 0.95% expense ratio sits right at the median for its active emerging-markets peer group: the going rate for stock-picking, not a surcharge.

Worth knowing

• PEMX Not the cheapest door into ex-China: Global X's EMM charges 0.66%.
• Small and thinly traded. Spreads can widen, so limit orders do the heavy lifting.
• Zero China by design, so results diverge from a broad EM fund and any China sleeve has to come from somewhere else.franklintempleton.com

• WCME Cheaper active EM options exist. EMM charges 0.66% and PEMX 0.70% against this fund's 0.95%, and fees compound whatever the market does.
• Small and thinly traded, so bid-ask spreads tend to be wider than a mega-fund's and sizeable orders need more care at the open and close.
• Concentration cuts both ways: with about 30 developing and frontier holdings, single stocks and single countries move it more than a broad tracker. It launched in 2020, so the record is short.

Full PEMX profile⁠

Full WCME profile⁠