DFAU vs DYNF

DFAUADimensional US Core Equity Market ETF

DYNFAiShares U.S. Equity Factor Rotation Active ETF

In short

DFAU Active management priced like an index fund. Dimensional spreads across roughly 2,400 US stocks, then tilts the weights toward value, profitability and momentum instead of simply mirroring the Russell 3000.

DYNF Most factor funds make you pick a lane: value, momentum, quality. DYNF rotates across five styles instead, letting a factor model decide which one leads, and charges an index-fund-ish 0.26% to do it.

Stated mandate

DFAU Seeks long-term capital appreciation. It uses an integrated research, portfolio-design, management, and trading process to build a broadly diversified portfolio of U.S. companies while balancing long-term return drivers, risk, shorter-term considerations, and trading costs.

DYNF The Fund seeks to outperform the U.S. equity market through diversified, tactical exposure to style factors using a factor rotation model.

Why people hold it

• DFAU Charges 0.12% a year, well under the 0.65% median for active US equity funds and the cheapest of the top-graded names in its group (AVLC, DFAC, FELC).
• Holds roughly 2,400 US companies, so no single name steers the fund. Whole-market coverage, not a concentrated bet.
• Active without the stock-picking drama: it leans weights toward value, profitability and momentum, using the Russell 3000 as its reference point rather than a rigid rulebook.
• A multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, and one of the strongest overall implementations in its active US equity peer group.

• DYNF Five style factors in one ticket (value, quality, momentum, growth, low volatility), reweighted by a rotation model rather than locked to a single tilt.
• 0.26% is well under half the median fee in its active US equity peer group, which is unusual pricing for a strategy with a human-supervised model behind it.
• A multi-billion-dollar fund and one of the more actively traded names in its category, so getting in and out rarely becomes the hard part. Pays quarterly.
• Running since 2019 under one of the biggest ETF shops, and it stands among the strongest overall implementations in the active US equity group we track.

Worth knowing

• DFAU Those tilts cut both ways: results can drift from a plain Russell 3000 fund for long stretches, in either direction.
• No published index behind it. The trade-off for flexibility is that you're buying Dimensional's process, not a public set of rules you can check line by line.
• Distributions land quarterly, not monthly, and the mandate is long-term capital appreciation rather than income.

• DYNF The yardstick isn't the S&P 500: it's a custom blend of 80% MSCI USA and 20% MSCI USA Minimum Volatility, so a low-vol tilt is baked into the benchmark itself.
• Active by design. The factor mix shifts, the book runs to a couple hundred stocks, and a rotation call can leave it out of step with a plain US market index fund.
• Cheap for active, not the cheapest shelf: systematic peers DFAU (0.12%), AVLC (0.15%), DFAC (0.17%) and FELC (0.18%) all undercut it on fee.

Full DFAU profile⁠

Full DYNF profile⁠