Low cost funds that invest in the-world-minus-America?

Factual Questions
1

I’m looking for funds that have a really low cost, like Vanguard, which invest in global stock markets but exclude the US. It’s better if that fund puts more weigh into emerging economies, like China etc…

I can’t find them using the current tools I searched. They are all too… technical. Like, too many abbreviations, and I don’t know how to translate human terms like “focus more on China & Korea” into a filter.

So, could you suggest some names, or teach me how to do it effectively? Thanks!

2

Vanguard has an ETF that does what you want, the symbol is VEU. There is probably a similar mutual fund, if you go to the page that shows VEU there will be a link to the similar mutual fund.

Edit:
https://investor.vanguard.com/etf/profile/overview/VEU

3

Also, at Vanguard you can browse their funds and ETFs and sort by asset class, if you do so you can scroll down to the international funds. While I do not know if they have any that meet you particular needs for China and Korea (unless you were simply giving those two markets as an example), they do have some that focus on particular classes such as developed markets, emerging markets, pacific markets, etc. Also note that many funds, particularly low expense funds, are simply funds that track a particular index. So if Vanguard doesn’t have anything that fits your needs, other fund companies likely have similar funds that track the same indexes.

https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/list#/etf/asset-class/month-end-returns

4

I have to say I was surprised to see the Chinese economy described as “emerging”. I guess I thought of it as emerged. But I checked several places and confirmed the OP is correct and China is generally classified as having an emerging economy.

Makes you wonder what their economy will look like when it matures.

5

It’s formally classified as “emerging” by some kind of international agreement. The World Bank? There is a body of opinion that it should no longer be so classified. It has an effect on the way it’s treated by other international agreements. I’m not an economist, I don’t know if there is a real argument, or no serious disagreement, or if it’s mostly politics.

6

Thank you! I can see that VEU split it up so Europe has the biggest share. Is there any way to filter a fund from other companies that has 50% emerging, 25% Pacific, 12% Europe & 13% others… without having to open every fund in every company’s web page and read them through?

7

Not that I am aware of, though that doesn’t mean much as I haven’t tried to look for funds beyond a wide diversified allocation. Perhaps a site like Morningstar would be useful to you, though I suspect you’ll still have to dig around a bit. Good luck!

8

Vanguard lists all of its Global and International mutual funds and its ETFs on separate pages. The “Global” categories include lots of US exposure, so you likely want to ignore those.

If you want to concentrate on emerging markets, including China, the funds you likely want are either the Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund Admiral Shares (mutual fund, ticker: VEMAX) or the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets Index (ETF, ticker: VWO). According to the ETF’s most recent annual report, 45% of the fund was invested in Chinese stocks.

Be sure to read the whole prospectus to understand the risks of investing in these types of fund and the limitations of the indexing strategy.

I’m not sure about the best competing funds but if you are looking at index funds, they are unlikely to be too much better than the Vanguard offerings in any event.

Good luck!