AZTD vs VSS

AZTDDAztlan Global Stock Selection Dm SMID ETF

VSSAVanguard FTSE All-World ex-US Small-Cap ETF

In short

AZTD Most developed-market small-cap funds hand you thousands of names. AZTD screens North America, Western Europe and Asia on six factors and keeps about 40. A boutique's high-conviction take on SMID, priced accordingly.

VSS One ticker for the small companies the rest of the world runs on: roughly 4,800 stocks across developed and emerging markets outside the US, at 0.06% a year. Vanguard has run it since 2009.

Stated mandate

AZTD The Fund passively tracks the Solactive Aztlan Global Developed Markets SMID Cap Index before fees and expenses.

VSS Seeks to track the FTSE Global Small Cap ex US Index, providing broad exposure to developed and emerging non-U.S. small-cap equity markets worldwide through passive index sampling.

Why people hold it

• AZTD Six factors (value, cash flow, capital structure, growth, EPS revisions, momentum) get equal say, and component selection is fully rule-based, not a manager's call.solactive.comsolactive.com 2
• Roughly 40 names spread across North America, Western Europe and Asia. Real conviction, not a closet copy of a thousand-stock global small-cap benchmark.solactive.com
• Health care is included but the pharmaceutical sub-sector is screened out, tilting the sleeve toward devices and services over drug-pipeline bets.solactive.com
• It tracks a published Solactive index, so the rulebook and each rebalance list are out in the open at the index sponsor.solactive.com

• VSS 0.06% a year, against a roughly 0.40% median for international small-cap funds. Only Schwab's SCHC matches the price.
• Developed and emerging markets in the same basket, roughly 4,800 names deep, so no single country or company carries much of the load.
• Tracks its FTSE Global Small Cap ex US benchmark closely and trades tightly for a fund built on thousands of overseas small caps.
• Running since 2009, now a multi-billion-dollar fund that pays out quarterly. Long track record, deep plumbing.vanguard.com

Worth knowing

• AZTD 0.75% a year runs above the median for its international equity peer group, and well above core options like AVDE (0.23%) and DFIC (0.22%).
• A small fund that trades thinly. Limit orders matter here, and spreads can be wider than on the category's mainstream names.
• About 40 stocks means single names move the fund far more than they would inside a broad developed-markets index.

• VSS Small caps abroad move harder than blue chips, and everything is priced back into dollars, so currency swings ride along.vanguard.com
• Vanguard samples the index rather than buying every line item, so the portfolio approximates the benchmark instead of replicating it.vanguard.com
• Coverage stops at the US border by design. American small caps sit entirely outside the mandate.

Full AZTD profile⁠

Full VSS profile⁠