A sound investment process and strong management team underpin Matthews Emerging Markets Discv Actv ETF's Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the second-lowest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy's investment process inspires confidence and earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained a significant overweight position in liquidity exposure and momentum exposure compared with category peers. High liquidity exposure is attributed to stocks with a high trading volume, lending managers more flexibility. And momentum exposure is rooted in holding stocks currently on a winning streak. The strategy’s management team earns an Above Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm an 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

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Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category benchmark on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. Matthews Emerging Markets Discv Actv ETF earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. 

The most significant contributor to the rating is its parent firm's superior long-term risk-adjusted performance, as shown by the firm's average 10-year Morningstar Rating of 3.7 stars. The parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 57% also strengthens the process. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and beat their respective category's median Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return for the period. Their compelling success ratio suggests that the firm does well for investors and that this fund may benefit from that. Lastly, the process is limited by the parent firm's five-year retention rate of 50%, which suggests it could do more to hold onto its portfolio managers.

 This strategy tends to hold smaller, more growth-oriented companies compared with its average peer in the Diversified Emerging Mkts Morningstar Category. Looking at additional factor exposure, the fund has held stocks with higher trading volumes compared to Morningstar Category Peers in the past few years. This gives the managers more flexibility during bear markets to sell without adversely affecting prices. In recent months, the strategy was more exposed to the Liquidity factor compared with its Morningstar Category peers as well. This strategy has also demonstrated more exposure to high-momentum stocks over peers in recent years. Momentum is based on the premise that market outperformers will continue to outperform, and laggards will continue to lag. This means that managers are overweighting stocks currently on a winning streak. Compared with category peers, the strategy also had more exposure to the Momentum factor in the most recent month. This strategy also has tilted toward low-quality stocks, companies with higher financial leverage and lower profitability over these years. Lacking this ballast, the fund's prospects could rest on its ability to surpass peers during economic booms. In recent months, the strategy also had less Quality factor exposure than its peers. More information on a fund and its respective category's factor exposure can be found in the Factor Profile module within the Portfolio section. 

 The portfolio is overweight in industrials and healthcare relative to the category average by 11.3 and 4.4 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are communication services and energy, underweight the average by 5.9 and 4.9 percentage points of assets, respectively. The portfolio is positioned across 72 holdings and is relatively top-heavy. Of the strategy's assets, 37.7% are concentrated within the top 10 holdings, compared to the typical peer's 25.4%.

Above Average

Process

Matthews Emerging Markets Discv Actv ETF earns an Above Average People Pillar rating. Vivek Tanneeru’s veteran status, with 10 years of listed portfolio management experience, brings a wealth of experience to the table. The average Morningstar Rating of the strategies they manage is 4.8 stars, demonstrating stellar risk-adjusted performance. Vivek Tanneeru draws on only two other listed supporting managers. Although, together they are adequately equipped, with five years of average listed portfolio management experience. As a team, they manage three investment vehicles together, with a Bronze asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, demonstrating their potential to deliver positive alpha in aggregate. 

 Note: The People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. The longest-tenured manager of the fund also manages a different product rated by an analyst. Their analyst-assigned People Pillar rating is combined here with the People scores (algorithmic or analyst-assigned) for the fund’s other managers on a tenure-weighted basis.

People

Matthews International Capital Management still has strengths, but a transforming strategy roster, personnel turnover, and a big decline in assets warrant a drop of its Parent rating to Average from Above Average.

Matthews has a long history of success with funds that focus on Asian equities, but it has overhauled its strategy roster in recent years. Since early 2020, it has liquidated three funds, merged another away, launched its first diversified emerging-markets fund, and converted two of its Asia funds into diversified emerging-markets offerings. It also has opened four active exchange-traded funds in the past 12 months. That's a lot of change, and the firm is unproven in the diversified emerging-markets arena, though the fact that Asian stocks dominate the emerging-markets universe is grounds for optimism.
 
Matthews still has 30 individuals—excluding portfolio strategists and traders—on its investment team, and many are seasoned and skilled. But the firm has lost quite a few managers and analysts since the start of 2020, and the investment team is much smaller than it was. Further, its management team has had notable departures and retirements, such as former CEO William Hackett. Fundholders have pulled sizable amounts from Matthews' funds in recent years, and assets under management fell to $12 billion as of May 31, 2023, from $27 billion as of Dec. 31, 2019.

Average

Parent

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