Designed to provide broad exposure to the Small Cap Growth segment of the US equity market, the First Trust Small Cap Growth AlphaDEX ETF (FYC) is a passively managed exchange traded fund launched on 04/19/2011.
The fund is sponsored by First Trust Advisors. It has amassed assets over $221.18 M, making it one of the average sized ETFs attempting to match the Small Cap Growth segment of the US equity market.
Why Small Cap Growth
Sitting at a market capitalization below $2 billion, small cap companies tend to be high-potential stocks compared to its large and mid cap counterparts, but come with higher risk.
Growth stocks have higher than average sales and earnings growth rates. While these are expected to grow faster than the broader market, they also have higher valuations. Additionally, growth stocks have a greater level of risk associated with them. When you consider growth versus value, growth stocks are usually the clear winner in strong bull markets but tend to fall flat in nearly all other environments.
Costs
Investors should also pay attention to an ETF's expense ratio. Lower cost products will produce better results than those with a higher cost, assuming all other metrics remain the same.
Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.70%, making it one of the most expensive products in the space.
It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 0.38%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
It is important to delve into an ETF's holdings before investing despite the many upsides to these kinds of funds like diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.
This ETF has heaviest allocation to the Industrials sector--about 18.90% of the portfolio. Financials and Information Technology round out the top three.
Looking at individual holdings, Crocs, Inc. (CROX) accounts for about 0.90% of total assets, followed by Diodes Incorporated (DIOD) and Formfactor, Inc. (FORM).
The top 10 holdings account for about 7.98% of total assets under management.
Performance and Risk
FYC seeks to match the performance of the Nasdaq AlphaDEX Small Cap Growth Index before fees and expenses. The NASDAQ AlphaDEX Small Cap Growth Index is an enhanced which employs the AlphaDEX stock selection methodology to select stocks from the NASDAQ US 700 Small Cap Growth Index.
The ETF has added about 4.16% so far this year and is up roughly 7.14% in the last one year (as of 02/14/2020). In the past 52-week period, it has traded between $42.61 and $48.61.
The ETF has a beta of 1.13 and standard deviation of 17.27% for the trailing three-year period, making it a high risk choice in the space. With about 263 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk.