DFAU vs SPIT: Grades, Fees and Holdings Compared

Dimensional US Core Equity Market ETF

DFAUANYSE Arca

F/m Emerald Special Situations ETF

SPITDNasdaq

Overlap

8.3%by weight

Expense ratio

DFAU −0.78pt a year

DFAU0.12%SPIT0.90%

Avg volume · 30D

DFAU 96.1×the volume

DFAU555KSPIT5.77K

DFAU vs SPIT Performance

Oct 31, 2025 – Oct 30, 2026

+13.2%DFAU+10.0%SPIT

Expense ratio: DFAU 0.12%, better; SPIT 0.90%
Fund size: DFAU $12.9B; SPIT $32M
1Y total return: DFAU +13.2%, better; SPIT +10.0%
Yield (12M): DFAU 0.90%; SPIT No data
Holdings: DFAU 2165; SPIT 45
Avg volume (30D): DFAU 555K sh, better; SPIT 5.77K sh
NAV per share: DFAU $52.28; SPIT $28.94
52W range

ETF.net Grade

Pillar letters and Scores for DFAU, SPIT, with each pillar’s weight
Pillar	DFAU	SPIT
Cost30% weight	A97Higher	F23
Mission25% weight	A83	Not scored
Risk15% weight	B65Higher	F17
Tradability15% weight	A87Higher	D38
Holdings10% weight	A84Higher	A75
Durability5% weight	A91Higher	F23

Rank among US Active Equity funds

How we build Categories ›

Same Category. DFAU and SPIT are both graded against the same 121 US Active Equity funds, so their Grades compare head to head.

US Active Equity⁠

Category · 121 funds

See all 121 ›

DFAU ranks 2nd and SPIT 104th of 121 funds in the US Active Equity Category.

Rank 1AAVLCAvantis U.S. Large Cap Equity ETFScore 87
Rank 2ADFAUDimensional US Core Equity Market ETFScore 86
Rank 3ADFACDimensional US Core Equity 2 ETFScore 85
Rank 104DFFFFounders 100 ETFScore 31
Rank 104DSPITF/m Emerald Special Situations ETFScore 31
Rank 104DTIMEClockwise U.S. Core Equity ETFScore 31

Our read on each fund

ETF.net Research

DFAUADimensional US Core Equity Market ETF

SPITDF/m Emerald Special Situations 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.

SPIT Event-driven stock picking in an ETF wrapper: spin-offs, recapitalizations, transformational M&A, new bosses in the corner office. Benchmark-agnostic, any market cap, concentrated, and priced like the active mandate it is at 0.90%.

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.

SPIT The Fund seeks long-term growth through capital appreciation and primarily invests in equity securities of companies undergoing unique, idiosyncratic situations or transformations, including mergers, reorganizations, and other unusual issuer-specific events.

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.

SPIT Hunts catalysts, not sectors: spin-offs, divestitures, recapitalizations, transformational mergers and leadership changes, with at least 80% of assets in such special situations.emeraldetfs.com
Benchmark-agnostic and sector-agnostic by design, across market caps, so the portfolio is not anchored to mega-cap index weights.businesswire.com
Sub-advised by Emerald's Lancaster, Pennsylvania team, which has managed client money since 1992, under F/m Investments as adviser.businesswire.com nasdaqtrader.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.

SPIT At 0.90% it sits above the typical US active equity fund, with no fee waiver; index-tracking peers like DFAU (0.12%) and AVLC (0.15%) cost far less.
Launched October 2025, so the live record is short, and it has stayed small and lightly traded so far; spreads can run wider than on giant index funds.
Concentrated and catalyst-driven: single names swing results, and the issuer frames it as a satellite 'gas pedal' rather than a core holding.businesswire.com yahoo.com

Full DFAU profile⁠

Full SPIT profile⁠

DFAU vs SPIT Holdings

How DFAU and SPIT differ

Overlap by weight

8.3%

Shared holdings make up 90.0% of SPIT and 12.6% of DFAU.

Level by level

Holdings38 in both8.3%
Countryby domicile99.3%
Asset classEquity100%

Sector

No Sector split for SPIT.

Country, concentration and asset class

Country by domicile

Country weights in DFAU and SPIT, widest gap first
Country	More in DFAUMore in SPIT	DFAU	SPIT
United States	SPIT +0.7 points	99.3%	100.0%
Other countries (10)	DFAU +0.7 points	0.7%	0.0%

Concentration

Weight in the 10 largest Holdings

DFAU33.4%
SPIT36.5%

Securities held

DFAU2,164
SPIT45

Asset class

DFAU: Equity
SPIT: Equity

Holdings

Only in DFAU2,126
In both38
Only in SPIT7

Only in DFAU

2,126 securities, 87.2% of DFAU by weight

Apple Inc.7.10%
Microsoft Corp5.62%
Alphabet Inc - Class A2.14%
Broadcom Inc2.04%
Alphabet Inc1.76%
Micron Technology Inc.1.62%
Eli Lilly and Company1.45%
Tesla Inc1.35%
JPMorgan Chase & Co1.21%
Berkshire Hathaway Cl-B1.15%
Exxonmobil Holdings Corp1.07%
Advanced Micro Devices1.02%
Visa Inc0.96%
Johnson & Johnson0.78%
Mastercard Inc - A0.69%
Walmart Inc.0.68%
AbbVie Inc.0.61%
Chevron Corp.0.56%
Cisco Systems Inc.0.54%
Merck & Company Inc0.53%
Procter & Gamble Co/The0.52%
Costco Wholesale Corp.0.48%
Intel Corp0.48%
Coca Cola Co.0.46%
Home Depot Inc0.46%
UnitedHealth Group Inc.0.40%
Palantir Technologies Inc0.40%
Bank of America Corp0.39%
Applied Materials Inc.0.39%
Oracle Corp.0.38%
General Electric Company0.38%
Philip Morris Intl0.37%
Amgen Inc0.36%
International Business Ma0.36%
Lam Research Corp0.36%
Texas Instruments Inc.0.36%
Caterpillar Inc.0.35%
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.0.35%
Wells Fargo & Co.0.34%
Rtx Corp0.31%
New Linde PLC0.30%
Verizon Communications0.30%
Gilead Sciences Inc0.30%
Qualcomm Inc.0.29%
Morgan Stanley0.29%
Kla Corp0.29%
Conocophillips0.28%
Thermo Fisher Scientific.0.27%
Sandisk Corp/De0.27%
American Express Co.0.26%

Only in SPIT

7 securities, 10.0% of SPIT by weight

Billiontoone Inc2.25%
AeroVironment Inc2.23%
Cardinal Infrastructure Group Inc1.29%
Nektar Therapeutics1.23%
F/m US Treasury 12 Month Bill ETF1.12%
Wave Life Sciences Inc1.02%
indie Semiconductor Inc0.86%

Weight gaps

All 38 Holdings in both funds, largest gap first.

Holding weights in DFAU and SPIT, widest gap first
Holding	More in DFAUMore in SPIT	DFAU	SPIT
Guardant Health IncGH	SPIT +4.42 points	0.03%	4.45%
NVIDIA CorpNVDA	DFAU +4.22 points	6.79%	2.57%
Tetra Technologies IncTTI	SPIT +3.94 points	<0.01%	3.94%
Corcept Therapeutics IncCORT	SPIT +3.66 points	<0.01%	3.67%
Commvault Systems IncCVLT	SPIT +3.66 points	<0.01%	3.66%
Everpure IncP	SPIT +3.60 points	0.05%	3.65%
Mongodb IncMDB	SPIT +3.50 points	0.04%	3.54%
Livanova PLCLIVN	SPIT +3.43 points	<0.01%	3.44%
Solaris Energy InfrastrucSEI	SPIT +3.41 points	<0.01%	3.41%
Excelerate Energy IncEE	SPIT +2.98 points	<0.01%	2.98%
Skyward Specialty InsuranSKWD	SPIT +2.87 points	<0.01%	2.87%
Credo Technology Group HoCRDO	SPIT +2.85 points	0.04%	2.89%
Interdigital IncIDCC	SPIT +2.81 points	0.02%	2.83%
Take-Two Interactive SoftTTWO	SPIT +2.80 points	0.05%	2.85%
Ftai Aviation LtdFTAI	SPIT +2.58 points	0.03%	2.61%
Replimune Group IncREPL	SPIT +2.55 points	<0.01%	2.55%
Arlo Technologies IncARLO	SPIT +2.50 points	<0.01%	2.50%
Freshpet IncFRPT	SPIT +2.41 points	<0.01%	2.42%
Nlight IncLASR	SPIT +2.12 points	<0.01%	2.12%
Bloom Energy CorpBE	SPIT +2.06 points	0.05%	2.11%
Mercury Systems IncMRCY	SPIT +2.05 points	<0.01%	2.06%
Palomar Holdings IncPLMR	SPIT +2.04 points	<0.01%	2.05%
Transmedics Group IncTMDX	SPIT +1.98 points	<0.01%	1.98%
American Superconductor CAMSC	SPIT +1.83 points	<0.01%	1.83%
Darling Ingredients IncDAR	SPIT +1.81 points	0.02%	1.83%
Unity Software IncU	SPIT +1.75 points	0.04%	1.79%
Insmed IncINSM	SPIT +1.70 points	0.02%	1.72%
Mastec Inc.MTZ	SPIT +1.68 points	0.02%	1.70%
Bwx Technologies IncBWXT	SPIT +1.24 points	0.02%	1.26%
Travere Therapeutics IncTVTX	SPIT +1.20 points	<0.01%	1.20%
Sensient Technologies CorSXT	SPIT +1.15 points	<0.01%	1.16%
Biogen IncBIIB	SPIT +1.05 points	0.06%	1.11%
Kratos Defense & SecurityKTOS	SPIT +1.05 points	<0.01%	1.06%
Starbucks CorpSBUX	SPIT +1.04 points	0.14%	1.18%
Palo Alto Networks IncPANW	SPIT +1.02 points	0.20%	1.22%
Amazon.com Inc.AMZN	SPIT +0.64 points	3.14%	3.78%
Sable Offshore CorpSOC	SPIT +0.28 points	0.00%	0.28%
Meta Platforms IncMETA	DFAU +0.05 points	1.78%	1.73%

All 2,381 DFAU holdings⁠All SPIT holdings⁠

How we measure overlap

Each holding counts at its smaller weight in the two funds, summed over the full Holdings. Sector, country and asset class use the same rule on each fund’s split. Cash, FX and derivative lines stay out of the counts. Two bond funds get no overlap figure.

DFAU vs SPIT Cost

Overpaying SPIT vs DFAU

$14,520

On $10,000 over 30 years. 7% growth a year before fees, expense ratio only.

DFAU 0.12%
$2,520
SPIT 0.90%
$17,040

Amount$10,000

Years30 years

Cost over time

DFAU 0.12%
SPIT 0.90%
Overpaying

Year by year

Year	DFAU	SPIT	Overpaying
10	$220	$1,593	$1,373
20	$859	$6,015	$5,156
30	$2,520	$17,040	$14,520

Expense ratio

0.12%DFAU, cheaper
0.90%SPIT

DFAU0.12%SPIT0.90%

0.00%2.89%

Middle half of US Active Equity funds
Median 0.68%

DFAU 4th cheapest of 121 funds

SPIT 94th cheapest of 121 funds

DFAU vs SPIT Dividends

Last 12 months to Oct 30, 2026

Yield (12M): DFAU 0.90%; SPIT No data
Payout (12M): DFAU $0.47; SPIT No data
Last payment: DFAU $0.12; SPIT $1.86
Ex-dividend: DFAU Sep 22, 2026; SPIT Nov 13, 2025
Paid on: DFAU Sep 24, 2026; SPIT Nov 14, 2025
Frequency: DFAU Quarterly; SPIT Irregular

Distribution history

Per share, 2020 to 2026, same scale for both

DFAUQuarterly · 24 paymentsAll DFAU payments⁠

SPITIrregular · 1 paymentAll SPIT payments⁠

DFAU vs SPIT Risk

Fall from peak · 5 years

This chart needs five years of history for both funds.

Risk facts

VolatilityStd dev, 3 years: DFAU 12.4%SPIT 25.0%since Nov 2025
Return per unit of riskSharpe ratio, 3 years: DFAU 1.38SPIT 0.34since Nov 2025
Worst fallMax drawdown, 5 years: DFAU −23.6%SPIT −19.5%since Oct 2025
Market sensitivityBeta, 5 years: DFAU 1.01SPIT 1.47; Market = 1

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