ADPV vs VFMO

ADPVDAdaptiv Select ETF

VFMOAVanguard U.S. Momentum Factor ETF

In short

ADPV Most momentum funds rank stocks. Adaptiv Select points the idea at the whole market: an active US equity fund with a regime filter that seeks gains when the market is rising and aims to limit drawdowns when it falls.

VFMO Vanguard doing active. A quant team buys the strongest recent performers across the entire US market, roughly 600 names deep, at 0.13% a year for a job that usually costs several times more.

Stated mandate

ADPV The Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation when the broad U.S. equity market is rising and aims to limit drawdowns during broad-market declines.

VFMO The Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing in U.S. stocks with strong recent performance selected through the advisor’s quantitative process.

Why people hold it

• ADPV One job, stated plainly: own US stocks while the broad market is rising and limit drawdowns when it declines. The drawdown language is written into the mandate itself.
• Unusual wiring for its cohort. Peers such as MTUM and SPMO screen individual stocks for momentum; ADPV runs a market-level regime filter instead.
• Live since late 2022, so the regime calls have a real-world record you can inspect rather than a backtest.

• VFMO Costs 0.13% a year, sitting with the cheapest systematic momentum funds (JMOM 0.12%, SPMO 0.13%, MTUM 0.15%) and well under the group's typical fee.
• Hunts winners across the full Russell 3000, small and mid caps included, and spreads the bet over about 600 stocks rather than a short list of mega caps.vanguard.com
• Actively run through Vanguard's quantitative process: the Russell 3000 is the yardstick, not a rulebook the fund has to copy on index-review day.vanguard.com
• A multi-billion-dollar fund paying quarterly, and one of the stronger implementations in the US momentum group on cost and portfolio construction.

Worth knowing

• ADPV The 1.00% expense ratio is the price of the model. Index momentum peers like SPMO and MTUM charge 0.13% and 0.15% for a stock-ranking approach.
• Thinly traded, so bid-ask spreads can run wider than in the cohort's heavyweights, and the round trip costs more than the headline fee suggests.
• No published index sits behind it, so there is no tracking yardstick to check it against. Outcomes ride entirely on the manager's regime read.

• VFMO Momentum by design owns what has already run. When market leadership flips, this style tends to take the turn harder than a plain total-market fund.
• No index to hide behind. Results ride on Vanguard's model, and the portfolio can look very different from the Russell 3000 in either direction.
• Trading activity is moderate rather than category-leading, which shows up in spreads on large orders more than small ones.

Full ADPV profile⁠

Full VFMO profile⁠