etf overlap · heavy overlap
EFA vs SMEA overlap
64% of EFA and SMEA is the same money, spread over 384 companies both funds hold.
Holdings as of September 24, 2026 · source: iShares (EFA), iShares (SMEA) · How we measured all 1,431 pairs
- same money
- same companies, extra weight
- only in this fund
What only one of them gives you
Where each fund puts its money
EFA and SMEA: what people ask
How much do EFA and SMEA overlap?
64% by weight, as of September 24, 2026: heavy overlap. 384 companies appear in both funds; they make up 64% of EFA and 99% of SMEA.
Which stocks do EFA and SMEA both hold?
The largest shared positions are ASML, HSBA, ROP, SHEL and NOVN. Ranked by the smaller of the two weights, which is the part you would own twice.
Is it redundant to hold both EFA and SMEA?
Out of every $100 split evenly between them, about $64 (half in each fund) buys identical positions. The rest is exposure only one of the two funds gives you: 272 names only in EFA, 1 only in SMEA. Half in each behaves like 148 equally weighted stocks, against 193 for EFA alone and 104 for SMEA alone. Whether that duplication is a problem depends on the mix you want; this is a description, not advice.
Is SMEA the European version of EFA?
Partly: 64% of the money in SMEA and EFA is the same, as of September 24, 2026. SMEA is iShares Core MSCI Europe UCITS ETF EUR (Acc) (ISIN IE00B4K48X80), an Irish-domiciled UCITS fund on the MSCI Europe index. European brokers generally don't sell US-listed ETFs such as EFA to retail clients, because those funds publish no KID (the PRIIPs key information document); UCITS funds do.
Does the EFA vs SMEA overlap apply to other tickers?
Yes. SMEA also trades as IMAE (Euronext Amsterdam, EUR) and EUNK (Xetra, EUR). Each is the same portfolio in another currency, on another exchange or paying its dividends out, so EFA vs EUNK also overlaps 64%.
How is ETF overlap calculated here?
For every company held by both funds we take the smaller of its two weights and add them up. The weights come from the full holdings files iShares publish, not a top-10 sample, and companies are matched by their ISIN so share classes stay apart. Sector overlap applies the same rule to the issuers' sector labels; "behaves like N equally weighted stocks" is one over the sum of the squared weights.
Weights come from each issuer's published holdings file and are matched company by company on their ISIN. Cash, futures and currency positions are left out. This page describes what the funds hold; it is not investment advice.