This Cheap International ETF Does One Job Very Well

If you own a US total market fund and call yourself diversified, the math says otherwise. American stocks make up roughly 60% of global market capitalization, which leaves nearly 40% of the world’s listed companies sitting outside the wrapper. The iShares Core MSCI International Developed Markets ETF (NYSEARCA:IDEV) exists to fill that gap, and at 0.04% in annual fees it costs about as much as a tip on a coffee.

What This Fund Is Built To Do

IDEV tracks the MSCI World ex USA IMI Index, capturing large, mid, and small-cap stocks across developed markets outside the United States. The portfolio is anchored in Japan at 21.37%, the United Kingdom at 12.89%, and Canada at 12.21%. Moreover, continental Europe fills out most of the rest through France, Switzerland, and Germany. There is no emerging market exposure here.

Thus, you are buying earnings and dividends from roughly two thousand companies operating in stable legal regimes. The have no leverage, no options overlay, and no derivatives bolted on. No single company is individually large enough to wag the fund.

Cheap, Broad, And Quietly Compounding

The fund holds $27.5 billion in net assets and has been running since March 2017, long enough to have a record across rate cycles. Over the trailing twelve months IDEV returned 24.19%, with year-to-date gains of 5.53% and a five-year cumulative return of 51.15%. Since inception in early 2017, total return reached 121.8%.

The honest comparison is to Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF (NYSEARCA:VEA), which charges 0.03% and returned 30.7% over the past year and 55.6% over five years. VEA tracks a different FTSE index with slightly different country weightings (it includes Korea as developed, IDEV does not), which explains most of the recent gap. Both funds do essentially the same job for essentially the same price. The difference between four basis points and three basis points on a $10,000 position is one dollar a year. Stop optimizing.

What You Give Up

1. Currency exposure is unhedged. Therefore, when the dollar strengthens against the yen, euro, and pound, IDEV’s returns get translated downward in your account. The vast majority of the fund sits in non-dollar denominated assets, so currency moves can dominate single-year returns in either direction. Investors who want the equity exposure without the FX swings need a hedged product.
2. Sector tilt skews value. With information technology at just 8.28% against banks, miners, and industrial conglomerates, this is a fundamentally different portfolio than a US large-cap index. In years when megacap tech leads global returns, IDEV will lag.
3. Japan concentration is real. A fifth of the fund rides on Japanese corporate governance reforms and the Bank of Japan’s rate path. That has been a tailwind recently, but a single country’s macro story carries more weight than most US investors realize.

The macro backdrop is broadly supportive for the trade. The 10-year minus 2-year Treasury spread sits at 0.50%, well above inversion territory, and the 10-year yield at 4.39% has kept US growth multiples in check, conditions that historically benefit relative valuations in developed markets abroad.

IDEV is the right answer for an investor who wants the international developed slice of a global portfolio in a single cheap wrapper and is willing to accept currency drift, a value-leaning sector mix, and Japan-heavy weighting in exchange. Anyone hunting for emerging market growth or hedged currency exposure should look at a different ETF entirely.