It tracks the MSCI EM Asia Custom Capped Index and diversifies across more than 800 stocks in 8 Asian emerging markets. It also applies a capping strategy to prevent excessive concentration in any single stock.

It suits aggressive investors who want to bet on the growth of the technology and financial sectors in emerging Asia.

It is a passively managed (index-tracking) ETF launched by BlackRock in 2012.

It holds large-cap and mid-cap stocks from emerging Asia on a market-capitalization-weighted basis, while adjusting so that no individual company's weight exceeds a set level of the index. This provides broad exposure to major industries such as semiconductors and internet services.

• Broad exposure to emerging Asia, including South Korea and Taiwan
• High weighting in leading global technology companies

Assets under management (AUM) stand at $805.8M, and the total expense ratio is 0.49% per year.

Unlike peer ETFs such as VWO and IEMG, which cover emerging markets worldwide, EEMA concentrates solely on the Asian region, offering both higher growth potential and greater volatility.

Volatility can be significant depending on the global interest rate environment and the strength of the US dollar. Recently, semiconductor companies in Taiwan and South Korea have been driving returns on the back of artificial intelligence-related demand.

Fund inflows pick up when risk appetite for emerging market assets improves, and capital flows react sensitively to geopolitical tension in Asia and to Chinese economic indicators.

It is an efficient way to access Asian growth companies, but its high concentration in certain countries and sectors calls for careful volatility management.

IEMG and VWO, shown in the table, cover emerging markets worldwide and therefore offer greater regional diversification, but if you want to focus more narrowly on Asia, EEMA is the better fit. Meanwhile, AAXJ can be an alternative for investing across Asia excluding Japan, and AIA can be considered for those who want to concentrate only on the top 50 large-cap Asian stocks. If you want to track only the performance of emerging markets excluding China, using EMXC is also a valid strategy.

Here is a checklist of the key items to review when investing in EEMA. Please examine in advance the unique environment of Asian markets and the potential risk factors of emerging market investing.

Given the nature of emerging market assets, they can fall more sharply than developed market indexes during a market crisis. In particular, regulatory risk in a single country can affect the entire portfolio.

It is a core product suited to investors who want to take part in Asia's dynamic growth. However, it should be approached from an aggressive asset allocation perspective, with the ability to withstand high volatility.