DCOR vs JHSC

DCORAU.S. Core Equity 1 Portfolio ETF Class Shares

JHSCCJohn Hancock Multifactor Small Cap ETF

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.

JHSC Dimensional Fund Advisors built the index; John Hancock put it in an ETF wrapper. JHSC holds roughly 500 US small caps, leaning toward the cheaper and more profitable ones, with a 4% cap on any single company.

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.

JHSC The fund seeks investment results that closely correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the John Hancock Dimensional Small Cap 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.

• JHSC The rulebook comes from Dimensional Fund Advisors, the firm that turned academic factor research into a business. Weights tilt toward smaller, cheaper, more profitable names; high-priced, low-profit stocks are generally screened out.jhinvestments.com
• Roughly 500 stocks with a 4% ceiling on any one company at reconstitution. Single-name blowups land softly in a basket this wide.jhinvestments.com
• Among the smallest companies, the index also drops names with relatively high asset growth. That is a third screen on top of the value and profitability tilts, not a marketing label.jhinvestments.com
• Mechanical and public: the index reconstitutes and rebalances semiannually, with no manager calling audibles, and the fund has run on these rules since its 2017 launch.jhinvestments.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.

• JHSC The fee is 0.42% net of a waiver through July 31, 2027 (0.45% gross), above the category median and well above plain-vanilla factor peers such as VONV at 0.06% and LRGF at 0.08%.
• It trades thinly next to the category's heavyweights, so bid/ask spreads can run wider and large orders need more care.
• Those screens are the whole point, and they mean the portfolio can drift from a plain small-cap index in either direction for stretches at a time.jhinvestments.com

Full DCOR profile⁠

Full JHSC profile⁠