Global equities have been the most in-demand ETF exposures in recent years.
The Invesco MSCI World UCITS ETF now has the lowest fee for this core exposure.
Our swap-based model can offer a structural advantage over physical ETFs.
Investment risks: For complete information on risks, refer to the legal documents. Investment risks include: Value Fluctuation, Use of Derivatives for Index Tracking, Synthetic Risk, Equity Risk and Currency Risk. Click here for more information.
ETFs that provide exposure to global equity markets have dominated flows in recent years. This trend is likely to continue as a growing range of investors use these core building blocks, particularly those providing cost-efficient exposure to key benchmarks. Invesco now offers the lowest annual charge of any ETF tracking the popular MSCI World Index along with the structural advantages of our swap-based replication model.
The MSCI World Index is the most significant global equity benchmark in terms of assets following it, which includes 18 passively managed UCITS ETFs. It covers around 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalisation in each of the 23 developed market countries and is currently comprised of over 1,300 large and medium-sized companies.
Cost will almost always feature towards the top of an investor’s decision-making process, especially when selecting a passive exposure to what is likely to be a substantial portion of a portfolio. The ETF’s annual management fee is a sensible place to start and, all else being equal, you will want the lowest fee possible. The Invesco MSCI World UCITS ETF has the lowest annual management fee currently available for that exposure, at just 0.05% per annum. That’s 0.15% cheaper than the market average.
Please note an investment in this fund is an acquisition of units in a passively managed, index-tracking fund rather than in the underlying assets owned by the fund.
Cost is only one side of the coin, however. The product also needs to perform. For a passive ETF, performance can typically be measured by tracking error, i.e., how closely the ETF tracks the daily performance of the index over time, net of all costs. Here, performance can vary widely, and differences won’t always be due to fees alone.
An ETF can track an index in one of two ways. The most common is to invest physically in all (or a sample of) the index constituents and rebalance the holdings whenever the index is rebalanced. Dividends from the stocks held would be received by the ETF net of tax, often at a reduced rate. The dividend withholding tax on US equities, for instance, is 0.30% for a US investor but only 0.15% for many European-domiciled ETFs.
The other way to replicate the index performance is for the ETF to hold a basket of stocks, but not necessarily the ones in the index, and use swaps to deliver the precise return of the index. This swap-based approach is sometimes referred to as synthetic replication and is intended to deliver more precise tracking, often at lower costs, than would usually be achievable through physical replication.
ETFs that use swaps achieve an even lower dividend withholding tax rate than physically replicated funds. For the MSCI World exposure, this structural advantage has equated to an average enhancement of 0.05% per annum since 2018 over physically replicated funds, before fees. The significant reduction in the annual fee should widen the overall performance gap between our ETF and those using physical replication.
as of 31 March 2026
|
ETF |
Index |
Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
Mar 2025 - Mar 2026 |
18.96% |
18.90% |
0.05% |
Mar 2024 - Mar 2025 |
7.14% |
7.07% |
0.07% |
Mar 2023 - Mar 2024 |
25.22% |
25.07% |
0.12% |
Mar 2022 - Mar 2023 |
-6.87% |
-7.02% |
0.16% |
Mar 2021 - Mar 2022 |
10.23% |
10.12% |
0.10% |
Mar 2020 - Mar 2021 |
54.25% |
54.03% |
0.14% |
| Mar 2019 - Mar 2020 | -10.21% | -10.39% | 0.20% |
| Mar 2018 - Mar 2019 | 4.21% | 4.08% | 0.12% |
Mar 2017 - Mar 2018 |
13.55% | 13.52% | 0.02% |
| Mar 2016 - Mar 2017 | 14.79% | 14.77% | 0.02% |
Source: Bloomberg
Können Aktien aus Schwellenländern nach einem starken Jahr 2025 auch in den kommenden Jahren jene aus Industrieländern übertreffen? Wir sind der Ansicht, dass dies aufgrund mehrerer struktureller Gründe und zyklischer Faktoren möglich ist.
Das Jahr 2025 war von Unsicherheit geprägt, jedoch sollte das nächste Jahr auch neue Chancen bieten. Unsere Experten diskutieren das mögliche Potenzial dieser neuen Rahmenbedingungen im Jahr 2026.
Erfahren Sie, welche Ziele mit einem systematischen aktiven Ansatz verfolgt werden können und wie sich ein Aktien-ETF, der diese Strategie anwendet, zwischen einem rein passiven und einem traditionell aktiven Management einfügt.
