Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
"One historic fact about MAPIX is that it has not had as extreme a downside of other funds in the emerging markets."
-Yes, consider that MAPIX isn't as pure of an EM fund as many others. It has considerable allocations to Asian *developed* markets of Japan/Singapore/Australia which comprise almost 50% of the fund's country allocation. This is definitely why MAPIX has performed better this year compared to your purer EM funds. So investors have to be careful of that comparison.
CEFZX is different than FTEMX --- CEFZX is a pure EM stock fund but FTEMX is an EM Balanced Fund, that's why it was never mentioned. Noticed that David Snowball mentioned the following:
Still Fidelity Total Emerging Markets (FTEMX) has made a really solid start. FTEMX is one of the new generation of emerging markets balanced or hybrid funds.
So I think you just missed that small part.
FEO has a good management team from Aberdeen especially more so on the equity side, however, I'm not sure if many investors can handle the considerably higher volatility. Just a couple of months ago it was down almost 18% YTD. So just a caveat with this CEF.
One newer EM Balanced fund not mentioned is the TCW EM Multi-Asset Fund (TGMEX) and they're holding the ER of this retail share at the same level as the Institutional shares at 1.26% - which is the lowest ER I've seen in an EM balanced fund. The 2 fund managers are also the same managers as the highly regarded TGEIX (EM Bond fund) that a lot of investors seem to like as well. So this could be an interesting option too that I'm warming up to.
But understandably it was probably not mentioned because it has too short of a history to compare as it just came out I think a few months ago. But definitely one to watch out for and to throw into the mix for comparative purposes in the future.
FTEMX is good so far in its short existence - but I am still gun shy of Fidelity's EM equity team which on the whole over the past 10+ years has been very poor with their EM equity fund.
Comments
-Yes, consider that MAPIX isn't as pure of an EM fund as many others. It has considerable allocations to Asian *developed* markets of Japan/Singapore/Australia which comprise almost 50% of the fund's country allocation. This is definitely why MAPIX has performed better this year compared to your purer EM funds. So investors have to be careful of that comparison.
FEO has a good management team from Aberdeen especially more so on the equity side, however, I'm not sure if many investors can handle the considerably higher volatility. Just a couple of months ago it was down almost 18% YTD. So just a caveat with this CEF.
One newer EM Balanced fund not mentioned is the TCW EM Multi-Asset Fund (TGMEX) and they're holding the ER of this retail share at the same level as the Institutional shares at 1.26% - which is the lowest ER I've seen in an EM balanced fund. The 2 fund managers are also the same managers as the highly regarded TGEIX (EM Bond fund) that a lot of investors seem to like as well. So this could be an interesting option too that I'm warming up to.
But understandably it was probably not mentioned because it has too short of a history to compare as it just came out I think a few months ago. But definitely one to watch out for and to throw into the mix for comparative purposes in the future.
A bit of a profile of the fund (TGMEX):
https://www.tcw.com/~/media/Downloads/TCW Funds/Fund Profiles/OEF_FP.ashx
FTEMX is good so far in its short existence - but I am still gun shy of Fidelity's EM equity team which on the whole over the past 10+ years has been very poor with their EM equity fund.