The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Consumer Discretionary ETF (RSPD) made its debut on 11/01/2006, and is a smart beta exchange traded fund that provides broad exposure to the Consumer Discretionary ETFs category of the market.

What Are Smart Beta ETFs?

For a long time now, the ETF industry has been flooded with products based on market capitalization weighted indexes, which are designed to represent the broader market or a particular market segment.

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.

On the other hand, some investors who believe that it is possible to beat the market by superior stock selection opt to invest in another class of funds that track non-cap weighted strategies--popularly known as smart beta.

This kind of index follows this same mindset, as it attempts to pick stocks that have better chances of risk-return performance; non-cap weighted strategies base selection on certain fundamental characteristics, or a mix of 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

Managed by Invesco, RSPD has amassed assets over $302.94 million, making it one of the larger ETFs in the Consumer Discretionary ETFs. This particular fund, before fees and expenses, seeks to match the performance of the S&P 500 EQL WEIGHT CONS DISCRETIONARY ID.

The S&P 500 Equal Weight Consumer Discretionary Index equally weights stocks in the consumer discretionary sector of the S&P 500 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.

Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.40%, making it one of the cheaper products in the space.

It's 12-month trailing dividend yield comes in at 0.83%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure that minimizes single stock risk, investors should also look at the actual holdings inside the fund. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

For RSPD, it has heaviest allocation in the Consumer Discretionary sector --about 100% of the portfolio.

Looking at individual holdings, Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS) accounts for about 2.51% of total assets, followed by Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd (NCLH) and Carnival Corp (CCL).