DFAU vs SNAV

DFAUADimensional US Core Equity Market ETF

SNAVDMohr Sector Nav 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.

SNAV Eleven sectors make up the S&P 500, and this active fund tries to hold only the ones its model favors. A boutique rotation strategy that costs 1.59% a year, with no fee waiver in place.

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.

SNAV The Fund seeks capital appreciation through an actively managed, tactical strategy that allocates among industry sectors associated with the S&P 500 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.

• SNAV Rotation instead of owning everything: the adviser tactically allocates across the 11 sectors in the S&P 500, so sector weights can sit far from a plain index fund's.sec.gov
• You outsource the sector calls. One ticker does the work of shuffling a basket of sector funds yourself, with a manager deciding what gets weight.sec.gov
• Trading since January 2023, so there is a real, public live record to examine rather than a backtest.

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.

• SNAV At 1.59% with no fee waiver in place, it costs more than the typical fund in its active US equity category, and far more than core peers DFAU (0.12%) and AVLC (0.15%) or active rotation peer DYNF (0.26%).
• Small and lightly traded, which can mean wider bid-ask spreads and choppier fills than a mainstream core fund.
• Its own filings frame it for investors seeking long-term growth who can tolerate full market risk and large swings in principal. It has not been paying distributions.sec.gov

Full DFAU profile⁠

Full SNAV profile⁠