DCOR vs FAD

DCORAU.S. Core Equity 1 Portfolio ETF Class Shares

FADCFirst Trust Multi Cap Growth AlphaDEX Fund

In short

DCOR Index-fund breadth with an active steering wheel: roughly 2,300 US stocks weighted toward smaller, cheaper, more profitable companies, for 0.14% a year. Dimensional's long-running core equity playbook, in an ETF since 2023.

FAD FAD has run First Trust's AlphaDEX screen since 2007, ranking US stocks on growth and value marks and spreading the survivors across roughly 700 names, small caps included. Rules-based stock picking wearing an index wrapper.

Stated mandate

DCOR The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation through a broadly diversified portfolio of U.S. equities. Its approach combines portfolio design, research, management, and trading while emphasizing long-term expected-return drivers.

FAD The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield of the Nasdaq AlphaDEX Multi Cap Growth Index.

Why people hold it

• DCOR 0.14% a year, well under half the typical fee among US multifactor peers.
• Roughly 2,300 holdings makes this a whole-market core position, not a factor slice, with the smaller-cap, value and profitability tilts built into the weights.
• What the prospectus advertises is what the portfolio holds: broad US equity, tilted to cheaper and more profitable names. One of the tightest mandate fits in its peer group.

• FAD One ticker, roughly 700 US stocks spanning large, mid and small caps, so no single name or size band runs the show.ftportfolios.com
• Screens on growth and value marks rather than taking the market cap-weighted index as-is, and rebalances by rule instead of manager hunch.ftportfolios.com
• Live since 2007, so AlphaDEX here has a real-money record across multiple market cycles, not a backtest.
• Sticks to the job in its prospectus: tracking the Nasdaq AlphaDEX Multi Cap Growth Index, with little gap between what the documents describe and what it holds.ftportfolios.com

Worth knowing

• DCOR Actively managed with no index to replicate, so the holdings rest on Dimensional's judgment and turnover can run higher than an index fund's.sec.gov
• The 0.14% is net of a contractual fee waiver; the gross fee in the prospectus is higher, and the waiver runs on a renewable term.sec.gov
• Moderately traded rather than a volume monster, so spreads can be wider than at the biggest names in the category.

• FAD At 0.63% a year, it runs about double the typical fund in its multifactor group, and plain index peers like IUSG (0.04%) and VONV (0.06%) charge a sliver of that.
• Trading is thin next to the category's giants, so spreads can widen. Limit orders are the standard defense.
• Reaching down the cap ladder into smaller growth names means a choppier ride than a plain large-cap index.

Full DCOR profile⁠

Full FAD profile⁠