MSCI Emerging Markets
China, India, Taiwan, Korea, Brazil, the engine of the world's next chapter, and its volatility.
What it tracks
MSCI selects large and mid-cap from countries it classifies as emerging, a category based on economic development, market accessibility, and investor protections. Countries can be upgraded to developed status (as South Korea and Taiwan have been debated for years) or downgraded. The is rebalanced quarterly. A meaningful complication: China's weight fluctuated sharply after MSCI began including mainland A-shares in 2018, and has since been affected by government interventions in the tech, property, and education sectors. The top holding, TSMC, alone represents roughly 8% of the entire index.
Geographic exposure
Where in the world the index is invested, by domicile of listed company. For global indices this varies significantly between developed and emerging markets.
The index is denominated in the local currencies of its constituent countries. Currency movements against your home currency, whether USD, EUR or GBP, add an extra layer of return absent in a domestic index. China + India + Taiwan alone make up nearly 68% of the index.
Approximate end-2025 figures
Historical performance
Annual total returns from 2001 onward, including reinvested . Move the slider to see what a different starting amount would have become, and switch to the bar view to see how uneven the path actually was.
Total return, dividends reinvested, before fees and taxes. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Returns by decade
Average annualised return for each full decade. This view makes it obvious that the path is anything but smooth, the 2000s were a lost decade for US equities, erasing all gains from the dot-com crash and the 2008 financial crisis.
* 2020s is partial (2020–2025). All figures are approximate total return .
Sector breakdown
How the index splits across the eleven standard GICS sectors. The bigger the bar, the larger the weight in the index.
Approximate end-2025 figures
Top 10 holdings
The largest names in the index by weight. Together they make up a meaningful share of the whole, pay attention to concentration.
| # | Company | Ticker | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) | TSM | 7.9% |
| 2 | Samsung Electronics | 005930 | 3.8% |
| 3 | Tencent Holdings | 700 | 3.4% |
| 4 | Alibaba Group | BABA | 2.4% |
| 5 | Reliance Industries | RELIANCE | 2.1% |
| 6 | Infosys | INFY | 1.5% |
| 7 | HDFC Bank | HDB | 1.4% |
| 8 | Meituan | 3690 | 1.2% |
| 9 | SK Hynix | 000660 | 1.0% |
| 10 | ICICI Bank | IBN | 0.9% |
ETFs that track it
The funds most long-term investors use to own this index. Lower are almost always better. Domicile matters for , UCITS funds are domiciled in Ireland (IE) for European investors, US-domiciled (US) for American ones.
| Ticker | Fund name | Provider | Domicile | Type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EIMI | iShares Core MSCI EM IMI UCITS ETF USD Acc | BlackRock | IE | Acc | 0.18% |
| VFEM | Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets UCITS ETF | Vanguard | IE | Dist | 0.22% |
| EEM | iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF | BlackRock | US | Dist | 0.70% |
Accumulating, are automatically reinvested inside the fund. You don't receive cash but the share price grows. Simpler for long-term and more tax-efficient in many European countries.
Distributing, are paid out to you as cash. You decide what to do with them, but you're also responsible for declaring and paying on each distribution. Common preference for investors who want regular income.
A bit of history
MSCI launched the Emerging Markets index in 1988, initially covering 10 countries with a combined weight that was a fraction of today's. The 1990s and 2000s were transformative: China joined the WTO, Indian IT services boomed, and Brazil and Russia rode the commodity supercycle. The index returned over 10% per year in the 2000s on average, then 65% in 2008. The recovery in 2009 was just as dramatic: +79%. The 2010s were a disappointment, slowing Chinese growth, a strong dollar, and low commodity prices kept EM returns far below developed markets for an entire decade. China's regulatory on its own tech sector in 2021 were a reminder of political unique to emerging markets.
- + Exposure to the fastest-growing large economies, India, China, Indonesia, Brazil.
- + Natural away from developed markets and the US dollar.
- + The 2000s showed what EM can do: +10% CAGR for the whole decade.
- + Low-cost UCITS trackers available from 0.18% (EIMI).
- − Extreme : the 2008 was -65%, and +79% in 2009. Stomach required.
- − Political : government intervention, capital controls, regulatory crackdowns, especially in China.
- − Currency : exposure to dozens of local currencies against your home currency.
- − The entire 2010s delivered just 3.7% CAGR, a decade of disappointment after the 2000s boom.
- − China alone is ~27% of the index, high single-country concentration despite 24 countries.
All figures are approximate end-2025 values for educational illustration. Index composition, weights, holdings and returns change constantly. Nothing here is financial advice or a recommendation.