In This Article:
The First Trust Small Cap Core AlphaDEX ETF (FYX) made its debut on 05/08/2007, and is a smart beta exchange traded fund that provides broad exposure to the Style Box - Small Cap Blend category of the market.
What Are Smart Beta ETFs?
Market cap weighted indexes were created to reflect the market, or a specific segment of the market, and the ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on this strategy.
Market cap weighted indexes offer a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns, and are a good option for investors who believe in market efficiency.
However, some investors believe in the possibility of beating the market through exceptional stock selection, and choose a different type of fund that tracks non-cap weighted strategies: smart beta.
Non-cap weighted indexes try to choose stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance, which is based on specific fundamental characteristics, or a mix of other such characteristics.
Even though this space provides many choices to investors--think one of the simplest methodologies like equal-weighting and more complicated ones like fundamental and volatility/momentum based weighting--not all have been able to deliver first-rate results.
Fund Sponsor & Index
The fund is managed by First Trust Advisors. FYX has been able to amass assets over $953.91 million, making it one of the average sized ETFs in the Style Box - Small Cap Blend. This particular fund, before fees and expenses, seeks to match the performance of the Nasdaq AlphaDEX Small Cap Core Index.
The NASDAQ AlphaDEX Small Cap Core Index is an enhanced index which employs the AlphaDEX stock selection methodology to select stocks from the NASDAQ US 700 Small Cap Index.
Cost & Other Expenses
Since cheaper funds tend to produce better results than more expensive funds, assuming all other factors remain equal, it is important for investors to pay attention to an ETF's expense ratio.
Operating expenses on an annual basis are 0.60% for this ETF, which makes it one of the more expensive products in the space.
FYX's 12-month trailing dividend yield is 2.01%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure which minimizes single stock risk, it is still important to look into a fund's holdings before investing. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.
For FYX, it has heaviest allocation in the Financials sector --about 21.40% of the portfolio --while Industrials and Consumer Discretionary round out the top three.