A sound investment process and strong management team underpin SPDR® MSCI Em Mkts Fssl Ful Free RsrvETF's Morningstar Medalist Rating of Silver. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the lowest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy's sensible investment philosophy merits an Above Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained an underweight position in quality exposure and an overweight in yield exposure compared with category peers. Low quality exposure is attributed to stocks with higher financial leverage and lower profitability. And a high yield exposure is rooted in holding high dividend-paying or buyback stocks. The strategy’s management team earns an Above Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm an Above Average Parent Pillar rating. People Pillar and Parent Pillar ratings for this strategy are indirectly assigned by a Morningstar analyst rather than algorithmically derived. Please see the notes following each pillar section for more details. The details of assigning methods can be found in each pillar section.

Analyst Rating

Nuvn PA Mun Val Shs of Benef Interest

JPMorgan BetaBuilders Canada ETF

Pimco Income Opportunity Fund

Gold Fields Ltd.

Stewart Information Services

Fisker

Yum China Hlds

Credicorp

Sotheby's

Adams Natural Resources Fund Inc

Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category index on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. SPDR® MSCI Em Mkts Fssl Ful Free RsrvETF earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. The main driver of the rating is the parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 58%. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and outperformed their respective category's median Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return for the period. This fund tracks an index, which also increases its process rating. Historical data, such as Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, shows that passively managed funds have generally outperformed their active counterparts, especially over longer time horizons. Lastly, the process is limited by the parent firm's five-year retention rate of 74%, which suggests it could do more to retain its portfolio managers.

The investment strategy as stated in the fund's prospectus is:  The investment seeks to provide investment results that, before fees and expenses, correspond generally to the total return performance of the MSCI Emerging Markets ex Fossil Fuels Index.  Under normal market conditions, the fund generally invests substantially all, but at least 80%, of its total assets in the securities comprising the index and in depositary receipts based on securities comprising the index. The index is designed to measure the performance of companies in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index that are "fossil fuel reserves free, and " as determined by the screening methodology used by the index. The fund is non-diversified. 

 The portfolio has allocations in its top two sectors, financial services and communication services, that are similar to the category. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are energy and consumer defensive, with energy underweighting the average portfolio by 4.4 percentage points of assets and consumer defensive similar to the average. The portfolio is composed of 679 holdings and is similarly diversified as peers, with 24.1% of portfolio assets concentrated within the top 10 holdings. And finally, in terms of portfolio turnover, looking at year-over-year movements, 9% of the fund's holdings have changed, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

Above Average

Process

SPDR® MSCI Em Mkts Fssl Ful Free RsrvETF's strong team drives the strategy's Above Average People Pillar rating. There are two managers listed on the fund: Karl Schneider, Kala O’Donnell. The team is well equipped, with an average of 17 years of portfolio management experience. Together, they manage a total of seven strategies, with a Silver asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, demonstrating their potential to deliver positive alpha relative to the category median in aggregate.  

 Note: This People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. Morningstar analysts evaluate the People Pillar for passive products at the brand level and may also differentiate by asset class. There is at least one other passive strategy at the firm that is covered by a Morningstar analyst, so the People Pillar rating of the fund is inherited from the rating that the Morningstar analyst assigned to investment vehicles under the same brand name.

People

State Street Global Advisors is under new leadership but continues to move along the positive trajectory established by former leaders. SSGA maintains its Above Average Parent Pillar rating.
Cyrus Taraporevala, who oversaw much of SSGA’s recent transformation, retired from the CEO position in December 2022 and passed the baton to his successor, Yie-Hsin Hung. She inherited a business that’s become more disciplined with its fund lineup. Fees have come down, while product development remains focused on fixed-income and sustainability funds, and many of SSGA’s launches have echoed that intention.
The seeds that SSGA planted over the past several years have been bearing fruit. It built out a low-cost series of portfolio building-block ETFs in the U.S. bearing the “SPDR Portfolio” branding. SSGA launched these later than its industry rivals, so they aren’t as large. But they’re competitive, with solid management and low fees, which helped them consistently take in new money over the past several years.
SSGA continued to overhaul its ETF business in Europe with most of its recent fixed-income and sustainability fund launches. Many of these funds track indexes and charge relatively low fees. With operations in the U.S. and Europe standing on a firm foundation, SSGA will put more focus on its Asia-Pacific business—the smallest regional segment of its business.

Parent

SPDR MSCI Emerging Markets Fossil Fuel Free ETF

EEMX tracks a subset of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index that excludes companies that own fossil fuel reserves.

SPDR S&P 500 ESG ETF

SPDR MSCI ACWI Shs

SPDR MSCI ACWI Climate Paris A

SPDR S&P 500 Fossil Fuel Reserves Free ETF

As the market enters bear country, many sustainable fund investors are bearing the brunt of this downturn. But at Morningstar, Jon Hale, director of sustainability research for the Americas at Sustainalytics, notes that investors should stay the course with sustainable investing.

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Since today is Earth Day, now may be the perfect time for investors to look at the core holdings in their portfolios and ensure that they're being managed with an awareness of climate risk. At Morningstar, Jon Hale, director of sustainability research for the Americas at Sustainalytics, offers investors some ways to become more climate-conscious [.

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Global regulators are pushing for banks and institutional investors to disclose carbon emissions linked to their loans and investments. On Thursday, the International Sustainability Standards Board published a draft of its proposed standards, which provide a yardstick for regulators around the globe to use for imposing standardized disclosure rules on companies.

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While there's still much work to be done, some developing economies are increasingly prioritizing sustainability and carbon reduction efforts. That's a long-ranging trend that could result in trillions of dollars of capital commitments, perhaps indicating compelling trajectories for exchange traded funds like the SPDR MSCI Emerging Markets Fossil Fuel Reserves Free ETF (EEMX).

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SPDR MSCI EAFE Fossil Fuel Free ETF

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More investors are constructing portfolios with environmental, social, and governance principles in mind. This includes explicit carbon-reduction targets, temperature alignment goals, and climate objectives such as mitigation and adaption.

SSGA: Investors Should Use Optimization When Constructing Reduced-Carbon Portfolios

The effects of the Russia-Ukraine war have been far-reaching and devastating. In response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, NATO countries have been placing sanctions on Russia, companies have stopped doing business in the country, and index providers such as MSCI and FTSE Russell have delisted Russian securities from their indexes, making the region essentially uninvestable.

ESG in a Time of War

World leaders on Wednesday endorsed a resolution at the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi to end plastic pollution and create an international legally binding agreement by 2024. The resolution, titled “End Plastic Pollution: Towards an internationally legally binding instrument,” was adopted at the conclusion of the three-day UNEA-5.2 meeting and addresses the full lifecycle of plastic, including its production, [.

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Xtrackers MSCI EAFE ESG Leaders Equity ETF

Xtrackers MSCI Emerging Markets ESG Leaders Equity ETF

WisdomTree India Earnings Fund

iShares MSCI EM ESG Optimized ETF

FlexShares STOXX Global ESG Select Index Fund

Columbia International ESG Equity Income ETF

Franklin FTSE India ETF

First Trust Chindia ETF

HDFC Bank Limited

Columbia India Consumer ETF

iShares MSCI India ETF

Nifty India Financials ETF

iShares India 50 ETF

WisdomTree India ex-State-Owned Enterprises Fund

iShares ESG MSCI EM Leaders ETF

First Trust India NIFTY 50 Equal Weight ETF

NuShares ESG Emerging Markets Equity ETF

Invesco India ETF

iShares MSCI Global Impact ETF

iShares MSCI India Small Cap ETF

In this research piece, we discuss the possible pathway to India's environmental goals, as well as select investment opportunities that reflect ongoing progress across the ESG landscape. India fares well in disclosures with 97% of MSCI India constituents publishing sustainability reports.

Harnessing Growth: India's Transition Reflected In Sustainability Commitment

SPDR Portfolio Emerging Markets ETF

Russian government research and scientists have analyzed the recent melting occurring of the permafrost across much of Russia and have attributed it to climate change, reports the Wall Street Journal. The land, once thought to be permanently frozen, is having catastrophic effects on infrastructure, including vital gas and oil supply lines.

Russia's Economy Endangered by Melting Permafrost From Climate Change

Direxion Daily Emerging Markets Bull 3X Shares

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iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF

ProShares Ultra MSCI Emerging Markets

ProShares UltraShort MSCI Emerging Markets

Templeton Emerging Markets Fund

ProShares Short MSCI Emerging Markets

Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF

It's been more than a year since the initial outbreak of COVID-19, but the global pandemic continues to challenge economies and their health care systems.

Earnings Matter In Emerging Markets

Legg Mason Emerging Markets Diversified Core ETF

First Trust Emerging Markets AlphaDEX Fund

Some emerging markets have been coping with the COVID-19 crisis better than others, and their economies are in different stages of recovery.

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Invesco BLDRS Emerging Markets 50 ADR Index Fund

Avantis Emerging Markets Equity ETF

Xtrackers MSCI Emerging Markets Hedged Equity ETF

Vrts Gt Emg Mrk Shs

Guggenheim Shs MSCI Emerging Markets Equal Country Weight

Franklin LibertyQ Emerging Markets ETF

Freedom 100 Emerging Markets ETF

iShares Currency Hedged MSCI Emerging Markets ETF

iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF

Invesco RAFI Strategic Emerging Markets ETF

PIMCO RAFI Dynamic Multi-Factor Emerging Markets Equity ETF

Morgan Stanley Emerging Markets Fund Inc

Price swings have been dramatic. For example, we've seen 8 +/- 4% absolute moves in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index in the last two weeks of March.

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News for SPDR MSCI Emerging Markets Fossil Fuel Free ETF ETF (EEMX)