AVDS vs EDGI

AVDSAAvantis International Small Cap Equity ETF

EDGID3EDGE Dynamic International Equity ETF

In short

AVDS Avantis casts a wide net: roughly 3,000 non-US developed small caps, weighted with an eye on price, profitability and how much cash companies plow back in. Active management that looks a lot like an index fund with its thumb on the scale.

EDGI An actively run international stock fund with a two-part job written into its prospectus: pursue gains when markets rise, limit losses when they fall. Priced like an active manager in a cohort full of cheap trackers.

Stated mandate

AVDS The ETF seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing in a broad group of non-U.S. small-cap companies and considering valuation, profitability, and investment levels when selecting and weighting securities.

EDGI The Fund pursues capital appreciation in rising markets while seeking to limit losses during market declines.

Why people hold it

• AVDS Charges 0.30% a year, about half the typical fee in its active international peer group. Cheap is a durable edge in a corner of the market where fees usually run high.
• Roughly 3,000 holdings, so no single stock or country steers the outcome. This is small-cap breadth, not a concentrated stock-picking bet.
• The tilts are the whole design: valuation, profitability and investment levels shape both what it owns and how much of each, measured against MSCI World ex USA Small Cap.avantisinvestors.com
• Sits among the strongest builds in a crowded field of active international equity funds. Broad, systematic, low-fee: the boxes that tend to stay ticked.

• EDGI The dual mandate is in the prospectus, not just the marketing: pursue capital appreciation in rising markets while seeking to limit losses during declines. A different job than index-tracking.
• Active by design, so managers can reshape international exposure as conditions change rather than holding whatever a benchmark dictates.
• Conventional 1940 Act fund wrapper: the same daily-liquidity plumbing as mainstream ETFs, and a 1099 at tax time instead of a partnership K-1.

Worth knowing

• AVDS Thinly traded compared with the big international names. Limit orders and a look at the spread earn their keep here.
• Launched in 2023, so the live record is short even though the approach behind it is not new.
• Costs more than Avantis' broad international fund AVDE (0.23%). Small caps abroad are pricier to research and trade, and they swing harder.

• EDGI Fees run 0.97% a year, above the typical international active equity fund and several times what cohort leaders AVDE (0.23%) and DFIC (0.22%) charge.
• It opened in October 2024, so there is not yet a long record showing how the loss-limiting side of the mandate behaves across a full market cycle.
• A small asset base and light trading volume tend to show up as wider bid-ask spreads than the cohort's giants carry.

Full AVDS profile⁠

Full EDGI profile⁠