Is Invesco S&P MidCap 400 Equal Weight ETF (EWMC) a Strong ETF Right Now?

In This Article:

The Invesco S&P MidCap 400 Equal Weight ETF (EWMC) made its debut on 12/03/2010, and is a smart beta exchange traded fund that provides broad exposure to the Style Box - Mid 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.

These indexes attempt to select stocks that have better chances of risk-return performance, based on certain fundamental characteristics or a combination 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

The fund is managed by Invesco. EWMC has been able to amass assets over $201.51 million, making it one of the average sized ETFs in the Style Box - Mid Cap Blend. This particular fund seeks to match the performance of the S&P MidCap 400 Equal Weight Index before fees and expenses.

The S&P MidCap 400 Equal Weight Index equally weights mid-cap securities in the S&P MidCap 400 Index.

Cost & Other Expenses

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 EWMC are 0.40%, which makes it on par with most peer products in the space.

It's 12-month trailing dividend yield comes in at 1.15%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

ETFs offer diversified exposure and thus minimize single stock risk, but it is still important to delve into a fund's holdings before investing. Most ETFs are very transparent products and many disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

This ETF has heaviest allocation in the Industrials sector - about 17.90% of the portfolio. Consumer Discretionary and Financials round out the top three.

Taking into account individual holdings, Pbf Energy Inc (PBF) accounts for about 0.30% of the fund's total assets, followed by Antero Resources Corp (AR) and Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc (JAZZ).