At The Money: Better Results By NOT Investing with Dictators!

What It Covers

Perth Tolley explains how her Freedom 100 EM Index ETF excludes authoritarian regimes from emerging markets, outperforming traditional indices by avoiding China, Russia, and other autocracies.

Key Questions Answered

• •Freedom-weighted methodology: The index uses 87 variables measuring civil, political, and economic freedoms from Cato Institute to weight countries, automatically excluding worst offenders while traditional indices market-cap weight autocracies.
• •China performance gap: Since 1995, China's market returned roughly 100% total return versus S&P 500's 2,700%, as state-owned enterprises prioritize government interests over shareholders, subsidizing authoritarian control instead of maximizing returns.
• •Russia exclusion advantage: FRDM never held Russia while it comprised top 10 holdings in MSCI emerging markets indices, protecting investors when Russian stocks dropped to zero after Ukraine invasion, demonstrating autocracy risk pricing failures.