EFA offers broad developed market exposure but lacks compelling growth prospects, with Europe and Japan facing structural headwinds and limited innovation. Diversification benefits are muted, as EFA excludes emerging markets and many US stocks already provide global exposure, making EFA feel redundant. Yield is stable (2.5%-3%) and drawdown risk is moderate, but better alternatives like IPKW, IDVO, and CGDG offer superior risk-reward and growth potential.
The landscape of international equity ETFs often centers around benchmarks like the MSCI EAFE Index, which measures the performance of developed markets excluding the U.S. and Canada. While passive investing in such broad indexes is a common strategy, active international ETFs may be able to outperform benchmarks and add value to portfolios.
For over a decade, U.S. equities have dominated, but 2025 is shaping up to be a turning point. Several macro trends are converging to make international markets more attractive.
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The Fund is an investment vehicle that aims to replicate the performance of a specific market index. This underlying index targets equity market performance in developed markets outside of the U.S. and Canada, focusing on large- and mid-capitalization companies. The strategy of the Fund is to invest at least 80% of its assets directly in the stocks that make up the index or in financial instruments that have similar economic characteristics to those stocks. By aligning its investments with the components and weighting of the index, the Fund seeks to provide investors with a return that closely mirrors the returns of developed equity markets, excluding the U.S. and Canada. The index itself is market capitalization-weighted and adjusted for free float, ensuring that it accurately reflects the market segments it aims to represent.
This product line focuses on investments that seek to replicate the performance of the fund's underlying index. By investing in the component securities of the index or in instruments with substantially identical economic characteristics, these investments aim to mirror the performance of large- and mid-cap equity markets outside of the U.S. and Canada. Ideal for investors looking to diversify internationally without picking individual stocks.
The Fund employs market capitalization-weighted index strategies to execute its investment objectives. This method involves weighting each component of the index based on its market capitalization, ensuring that investments are scaled appropriately to the size of each company. This strategy is fundamental to achieving a return that closely resembles the performance of the underlying index, which is designed to reflect the equity market performance of developed markets outside the U.S. and Canada.