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Making its debut on 08/13/2013, smart beta exchange traded fund Schwab Fundamental U.S. Broad Market Index ETF (FNDB) provides investors broad exposure to the Style Box - All Cap Value 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.
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.
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
Because the fund has amassed over $583.54 million, this makes it one of the larger ETFs in the Style Box - All Cap Value. FNDB is managed by Charles Schwab. Before fees and expenses, this particular fund seeks to match the performance of the Russell RAFI US Index.
The Russell RAFI US Index measures the performance of the constituent companies by fundamental overall company scores.
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.
With on par with most peer products in the space, this ETF has annual operating expenses of 0.25%.
The fund has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 1.89%.
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.
This ETF has heaviest allocation in the Information Technology sector - about 18.30% of the portfolio. Financials and Industrials round out the top three.
Looking at individual holdings, Apple Inc (AAPL) accounts for about 4.16% of total assets, followed by Microsoft Corp (MSFT) and Berkshire Hathaway Inc Class B (BRK/B).