iShares MSCI EM SRI UCITS ETF

What this fund is

iShares MSCI EM SRI UCITS ETF is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) from iShares, traded under the ticker SEMD (ISIN IE00BGDQ0T50). In a single purchase you get a diversified basket of holdings rather than a stake in just one business. In plain terms it is about owning small slices of companies, so you share in their growth when they do well — and their falls when they don't, spread across its target market. It passively tracks the MSCI Emerging Markets index — mirroring that market instead of paying a manager to pick winners, which keeps costs low, and its largest holdings include TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING, SAMSUNG ELECTRO MECHANICS LTD and UNITED MICRO ELECTRONICS CORP. With about 313 holdings (the ten largest ≈ 47.6%), your money is diversified rather than concentrated in a handful of names.

By geography it is weighted towards ~36.3% Taiwan, ~20.3% China and ~18.5% Korea (South). By industry it concentrates most in ~43.9% Technology and ~18.4% Financials. Funds like this are commonly chosen by investors who want a regular cash income stream rather than reinvesting everything for growth. Its ongoing charge (TER) is 0.25% a year — about €25 a year on a €10,000 holding, taken automatically from the fund. Income such as dividends is paid out to you as cash (a distributing share class), and over the last year it paid out roughly 0.97% (its trailing yield).

It holds the underlying investments directly (physical replication); it is domiciled in Ireland and UCITS-regulated, a European standard built to protect everyday investors and trades in USD. Its price has swung about 18.1% over the past year — a gauge of how much the value moves, not a judgement of quality. It launched in 2018. As with any investment, its value can go down as well as up, and past performance is not a guide to future results. (Fund data sourced from iShares.)