CZA vs IMCB

CZACInvesco Zacks Mid-Cap ETF

IMCBAiShares Morningstar Mid-Cap ETF

In short

CZA A stock picker in index clothing: about 100 mid-caps chosen by a Zacks quant screen instead of the whole segment. Running since 2007, and the 0.69% fee is the price of that opinion.

IMCB Mid-cap America for four basis points, running since 2004. It samples Morningstar's US mid-cap index across roughly 400 stocks and hews to that benchmark about as closely as anything in its category.

Stated mandate

CZA The fund seeks to track the Zacks Mid-Cap Core Index by investing at least 90% of its assets in securities included in that index.

IMCB The Fund seeks to track an index of mid-capitalization U.S. equities. It uses indexing and representative sampling rather than trying to outperform the index.

Why people hold it

• CZA Rules-based but opinionated. The Zacks Mid-Cap Core Index screens down to roughly 100 names, so the basket genuinely looks different from a cap-weighted mid-cap fund.invesco.com
• The mandate is tight: at least 90% of assets sit in the named index, so this is a quant screen in an index wrapper, not open-ended manager discretion.invesco.com
• Launched in 2007 under Invesco, it has run the same strategy through the financial crisis and every market since. Long track records are rare among rules-based screens.invesco.com
• It stays close to the index it advertises, so what you read in the methodology is broadly what you own.

• IMCB Costs 0.04% a year, against roughly 0.15% typical for the mid-cap group.
• Indexing, not opinions: representative sampling of the Morningstar US Mid Cap Index, with tracking among the tightest in its peer group.ishares.com
• Trading since 2004 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund, so there is a long operating history here, not a launch-year story.
• About 400 names covering both the growth and value sides of US mid caps, so no style tilt is baked in.

Worth knowing

• CZA Cost is the headline trade-off. At 0.69%, this sits far above plain mid-cap trackers such as VO and SCHM at 0.03%. That gap comes out of returns every year, screen or no screen.
• Thinly traded and modest in size, so bid-ask spreads are a bigger slice of your real cost here than with the giant mid-cap funds.
• About 100 holdings means individual names swing the fund more than in a broad index holding several hundred. Concentration cuts both directions.

• IMCB Thinly traded next to the category's household names, so spreads and order handling matter more at the moment of a trade.
• All US, all stocks: mid caps move harder than mega caps, and nothing else in the portfolio cushions an equity selloff.
• VO and SCHM cover similar ground at 0.03%, so the cost edge here is over the group average rather than over the cheapest rivals.

Full CZA profile⁠

Full IMCB profile⁠