iShares J.P. Morgan USD Emerging Markets Bond ETF (EMB)

How has EMB done since 2007?#

From December 2007 to October 2026, EMB returned about 4.4% a year. The S&P 500 returned about 11.2% a year over the same dates. Say you put in $10,000 at the start. It would have been worth about $22,558 at the end, with every dividend reinvested.

EMB returns by month and year#

EMB rose in 146 of its 227 months (64%). Its best month was December 2008, at 17.7%. Its worst was October 2008, at −19.4%.

How risky is EMB compared with the S&P 500?#

Measured from October 2021 to October 2026, on the days both traded.

• Beta 0.34. When the S&P 500 moved 1% in a day, EMB tended to move about 0.34%.
• Correlation 0.59. EMB moved with the S&P 500 some of the time.
• Up and down months. In months the S&P 500 rose, EMB rose 45% as much on average. In months it fell, EMB fell 70% as much.

Is EMB above its 200-day average?#

EMB closed 1.8% below its 200-day average on October 16, 2026. A rule that holds EMB only above that average would be out of it today.

What was EMB’s worst drop?#

A drawdown is how far a fund falls from its last high point. EMB’s worst fall was −34.7%, from May 21, 2008 to October 28, 2008. It got back to that high on July 21, 2009. On October 16, 2026 it was 3.8% below its highest close.

What does EMB hold?#

This fund holds bonds sold in US dollars by governments and government linked companies in emerging market countries. These bonds often pay more interest than US government bonds, but there is more risk the borrower may not pay back. The fund’s price can also move with interest rates.

It tracks the J.P. Morgan Emerging Markets Bond Index Global Diversified Core. It had 616 holdings as of October 15, 2026, according to iShares (BlackRock).

What is the EMB expense ratio?#

EMB charges 0.39% a year. An expense ratio is the yearly fee a fund takes to run itself. On $10,000, a 0.39% fee comes to about $39 a year. Of the 162 ETFs on Tactfolio, 14% charge more.

You never get a bill for it. The fund takes the fee out of its own value a little each day.

Which Tactfolio strategies hold EMB?#

2 classic strategies hold EMB at least some of the time. Each is a set of written rules you can open, test and copy.

• Paul Novell’s Tactical Bond Strategy, by Paul Novell, 2014
• Bond UI1 (Paul Novell’s unemployment bond strategy), by Paul Novell, 2019

How does EMB compare with similar ETFs?#

Funds that can stand in for EMB:

• BNDX: Vanguard Total International Bond ETF, 0.07% a year
• BWX: State Street SPDR Bloomberg International Treasury Bond ETF, 0.35% a year
• IGOV: iShares International Treasury Bond ETF, 0.35% a year
• USHY: iShares Broad USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF, 0.08% a year

See all 6 EMB alternatives, compared on the same dates as EMB.

Test EMB in your own rules#

Tactfolio is a platform where you build rules-based investing strategies, backtest them on decades of real prices, share them, and run them automatically in your own Alpaca account. Open the builder, add EMB, and see how a rule such as “hold it only above its 200-day average” would have done. Strategies run on daily prices and hold US stocks and ETFs only.

The details#

Prices come from Tactfolio’s stored daily prices for EMB and SPY. Each close is adjusted for splits, and dividends are reinvested on the day the fund pays them out. CAGR is the steady yearly return that turns the starting value into the ending value. Volatility is the yearly standard deviation of daily returns. Beta and correlation compare daily returns with the S&P 500 over the same dates.

Fund facts come from iShares (BlackRock). We checked them on October 16, 2026. Read what a backtest simulates and how to read drawdown and CAGR for more on these measures.