Is Invesco FTSE RAFI US 1000 ETF a Strong ETF Right Now?

A smart beta exchange traded fund, the Invesco FTSE RAFI US 1000 ETF PRF debuted on 12/19/2005, and offers broad exposure to the Style Box - Large Cap Value category of the market.

What Are Smart Beta ETFs?

The ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on market capitalization weighted indexes that are designed to represent the market or a particular segment of the market.

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.

But, there are some investors who would rather invest in smart beta funds; these funds track non-cap weighted strategies, and are a strong option for those who prefer choosing great stocks in order to beat the market.

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, and has been able to amass over $6.81 billion, which makes it one of the larger ETFs in the Style Box - Large Cap Value. Before fees and expenses, PRF seeks to match the performance of the FTSE RAFI US 1000 Index.

The FTSE RAFI US 1000 Index is designed to track the performance of the largest U.S. equities, selected based on the following four fundamental measures of firm size: book value, income, sales and dividends. U.S. equities are then weighted by each of these four fundamental measures.An overall weight is calculated for each firm by equally-weighting each fundamental measure.

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 this ETF are 0.39%, making it on par with most peer products in the space.

It's 12-month trailing dividend yield comes in at 1.69%.

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 PRF, it has heaviest allocation in the Financials sector --about 20.20% of the portfolio --while Information Technology and Healthcare round out the top three.

Looking at individual holdings, Berkshire Hathaway Inc accounts for about 2.30% of total assets, followed by Exxon Mobil Corp XOM and Microsoft Corp MSFT.

Its top 10 holdings account for approximately 16.93% of PRF's total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

So far this year, PRF has gained about 8.19%, and is up about 19.89% in the last one year (as of 06/13/2024). During this past 52-week period, the fund has traded between $30.37 and $38.58.

The ETF has a beta of 0.99 and standard deviation of 15.74% for the trailing three-year period, making it a medium risk choice in the space. With about 1014 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk.

Alternatives

Invesco FTSE RAFI US 1000 ETF is a reasonable option for investors seeking to outperform the Style Box - Large Cap Value segment of the market. However, there are other ETFs in the space which investors could consider.

IShares Russell 1000 Value ETF IWD tracks Russell 1000 Value Index and the Vanguard Value ETF VTV tracks CRSP U.S. Large Cap Value Index. IShares Russell 1000 Value ETF has $54.84 billion in assets, Vanguard Value ETF has $115.35 billion. IWD has an expense ratio of 0.19% and VTV charges 0.04%.

Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Style Box - Large Cap Value.

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