DCOR vs FTC

DCORAU.S. Core Equity 1 Portfolio ETF Class Shares

FTCCFirst Trust Large 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.

FTC A 2007-vintage smart-beta original. Instead of ranking large-cap growth names by size, FTC scores the field on growth and value metrics and holds only the roughly 190 stocks its AlphaDEX screen likes best.

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.

FTC The fund seeks investment results that generally correspond to the price and yield of the Nasdaq AlphaDEX Large Cap Growth Index, before fees and expenses.

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.

• FTC Rules-based, not cap-weighted: the AlphaDEX screen ranks large caps on both growth and value measures, so position sizes come from the scoring model rather than from a company's market value.ftportfolios.com
• Launched in 2007, making it one of the elder statesmen of factor investing, with a live record across multiple full market cycles rather than a backtest.
• Roughly 190 holdings, a far wider net than the concentrated megacap-heavy growth funds it sits beside. It is a multi-billion-dollar fund and pays quarterly.

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.

• FTC At 0.58%, the fee runs well above the multifactor peer median of 0.32%, and above rules-based rivals like FNDX (0.25%) and IUSG (0.04%). The screen has to earn that gap.
• Thinly traded compared with its category, so spreads can widen. Limit orders and avoiding the opening and closing bells matter more here than with the mega-liquid names.
• The blended growth-and-value screen means the portfolio can look and behave quite differently from a plain large-cap growth benchmark in any given stretch.

Full DCOR profile⁠

Full FTC profile⁠