DFAU vs FMCX

DFAUADimensional US Core Equity Market ETF

FMCXDFM Focus Equity 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.

FMCX A rare active ETF that keeps its cards face down: FMCX runs 25-35 high-conviction US stocks and files holdings quarterly like a mutual fund, with a verified intraday value published every second. First Manhattan's first fund, launched 2022.

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.

FMCX The Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation.

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.

• FMCX Non-transparent by design: holdings go to the SEC quarterly, not daily, while a verified intraday value ticks every second so market makers can still price shares.sec.gov
• Genuinely concentrated: 25-35 US exchange-listed common stocks of any market cap under normal conditions, picked by First Manhattan's research bench. No closet indexing.sec.gov
• At 0.72%, the fee sits near the category median for US active equity, even with a concentrated, individually researched portfolio behind it.
• Brings a long-established private advisory firm's separate-account research process into an ETF wrapper; FMCX was the firm's debut fund in 2022.businesswire.com

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.

• FMCX Thinly traded. Spreads and premiums or discounts to fair value carry more weight here than at high-volume peers, and larger orders can move the price.
• You see the portfolio quarterly, not every morning. That is the trade for the structure: more weight on the manager's process, less on your own eyeballs.sec.gov
• Cost sits well above the category's cheapest top-graded options, such as DFAU at 0.12% and AVLC at 0.15%, which spread risk across far more names.

Full DFAU profile⁠

Full FMCX profile⁠