COWG vs IMCG

COWGBPacer US Large Cap Cash Cows Growth Leaders ETF

IMCGAiShares Morningstar Mid-Cap Growth ETF

In short

COWG Pacer aimed its Cash Cows free-cash-flow playbook at growth stocks: roughly 100 Russell 1000 names chosen on cash generation and profitability rather than revenue growth alone. Growth, with the cash burners screened out.

IMCG Growth investing usually means megacaps. IMCG works the middle of the market instead: roughly 300 mid-cap growth names, indexed since 2004, for six basis points a year.

Stated mandate

COWG The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the Pacer US Large Cap Cash Cows Growth Leaders Index. Its rules-based strategy selects growth companies from the Russell 1000 using free cash flow margin and related profitability screens.

IMCG The Fund seeks to track an index of U.S. mid-capitalization equities with growth characteristics. Its strategy uses representative sampling and generally invests at least 80% of assets in securities from the Underlying Index.

Why people hold it

• COWG The screen is the product: Russell 1000 growth companies ranked on free cash flow margin and related profitability tests, and the fund has tracked that index closely.paceretfs.com
• About 100 holdings, so the cash flow filter actually shows up in the portfolio instead of being diluted across a several-hundred-name growth benchmark.
• Has reached multi-billion-dollar scale since its 2022 launch, trades at moderate volume, and pays on a quarterly schedule.

• IMCG 0.06% a year, one third of the 0.18% median for its growth-fund peer group. Mid-cap indexing at large-cap-index prices.
• The growth leaderboard is stacked with large-cap funds (VUG, SCHG, SPYG, VONG). IMCG covers the middle instead, holding about 300 mid-cap growth names.
• Sticks close to the Morningstar mid-cap growth index it follows, one of the tighter tracking jobs in its peer group.
• Running since 2004 under the iShares roof, with a multi-billion-dollar asset base behind it.

Worth knowing

• COWG The screen is not cheap: 0.49% a year against a growth-cohort median of 0.18%, and multiples of plain index rivals like VUG (0.03%) or SCHG (0.04%).
• Short history. It launched in December 2022, so there is no full-cycle record behind the methodology yet.
• A concentrated rules-based slice can look quite different from a standard large-cap growth index between rebalances, in either direction.

• IMCG Moderately traded rather than heavily traded, so bid-ask spreads can run wider than the megacap growth ETFs sitting beside it in the category.
• This is a size-and-style bet. Mid-cap growth companies tend to move more sharply than the broad market, in both directions.
• Distributions land quarterly, but a growth screen is not built around income.

Full COWG profile⁠

Full IMCG profile⁠