DFAU vs ESN

DFAUADimensional US Core Equity Market ETF

ESNBEssential 40 Stock 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.

ESN A 40-stock take on US large caps. KKM's Essential 40 Stock ETF tracks a single purpose-built index, giving you a compact, rules-based basket in a corner of the market dominated by funds that own hundreds of names.

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.

ESN The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the performance of the Essential 40 Stock Index. It normally invests at least 80% of net assets in common stocks comprising that Index.

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.

• ESN Rules-based by design: normally at least 80% of net assets sits in the index's common stocks, so the playbook is written down rather than left to a manager's mood.
• Nothing else in our active US equity coverage tracks the Essential 40 Stock Index, so this exposure is hard to duplicate with another off-the-shelf fund.
• Plain plumbing: a standard 1940 Act fund holding US common stocks, with no leverage, no derivatives overlay and no structural quirks to decode.
• Lands in the top quartile of the several hundred active US equity ETFs we grade, a strong showing for a fund this new.

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.

• ESN At 0.70% a year it runs above the roughly 0.65% typical for active US equity ETFs, and multiples of core rivals like DFAU (0.12%) and AVLC (0.15%).
• Launched in October 2024, so the history is short and there is not yet enough published data to measure how tightly it hugs its index.
• Forty names means every holding carries real weight, a different ride from a 500-stock core fund. Trading is moderate rather than heavy, so limit orders earn their keep.

Full DFAU profile⁠

Full ESN profile⁠