CCFE vs DFAU

CCFEFConcourse Capital Focused Equity ETF

DFAUADimensional US Core Equity Market ETF

In short

CCFE A 20-to-30-stock mid-cap book from a boutique sub-adviser, wrapped in an ETF. Concentrated, bottom-up, and priced like the active management it is at 0.96%.

DFAU Active management priced like an index fund. Dimensional spreads across roughly 2,400 US stocks, then tilts the weights toward value, profitability and momentum instead of simply mirroring the Russell 3000.

Stated mandate

CCFE The Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation through an actively managed equity portfolio, primarily consisting of mid-capitalization companies. The adviser applies bottom-up fundamental analysis and ranks companies using quality, valuation, and investment-thesis timing criteria.

DFAU Seeks long-term capital appreciation. It uses an integrated research, portfolio-design, management, and trading process to build a broadly diversified portfolio of U.S. companies while balancing long-term return drivers, risk, shorter-term considerations, and trading costs.

Why people hold it

• CCFE Real concentration, not closet indexing: the prospectus targets roughly 20 to 30 companies, mostly mid-caps it defines as $2 billion to $25 billion in market value.etfarchitect.com
• The process is written down: bottom-up fundamental analysis ranking companies on quality, valuation and investment-thesis timing. You can hold the portfolio to that standard.etfarchitect.com
• Boutique stock picker, established plumbing: Concourse Capital Advisors sub-advises, with EA Advisers as adviser inside EA Series Trust and a Nasdaq listing.sec.gov

• DFAU Charges 0.12% a year, well under the 0.65% median for active US equity funds and the cheapest of the top-graded names in its group (AVLC, DFAC, FELC).
• Holds roughly 2,400 US companies, so no single name steers the fund. Whole-market coverage, not a concentrated bet.
• Active without the stock-picking drama: it leans weights toward value, profitability and momentum, using the Russell 3000 as its reference point rather than a rigid rulebook.
• A multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, and one of the strongest overall implementations in its active US equity peer group.

Worth knowing

• CCFE At 0.96%, with no fee waiver in place, it costs above the typical fund in its active US equity category. Broad peers like DFAU (0.12%) and DFAC (0.17%) charge a fraction.
• Small and thinly traded, so the bid-ask spread is part of the cost of owning it, especially in size.
• Launched in 2025, so the record is short. And concentration cuts both ways: with 20 to 30 non-diversified positions, one holding can swing the whole fund.etfarchitect.com

• DFAU Those tilts cut both ways: results can drift from a plain Russell 3000 fund for long stretches, in either direction.
• No published index behind it. The trade-off for flexibility is that you're buying Dimensional's process, not a public set of rules you can check line by line.
• Distributions land quarterly, not monthly, and the mandate is long-term capital appreciation rather than income.

Full CCFE profile⁠

Full DFAU profile⁠