DFLV vs GVLE

DFLVADimensional US Large Cap Value ETF

GVLECGoldman Sachs Value Opportunities ETF

In short

DFLV Dimensional's value playbook in an ETF wrapper: large-cap value that also screens for profitability, spread across roughly 300 names, run by research rather than an index. Active by design, index-fund cheap in practice.

GVLE A stock-picker's version of value: roughly 20 to 40 companies Goldman's team thinks the market is mispricing, not a rules-based screen of hundreds of names. The strategy ran as a mutual fund from 2015 before converting into this ETF in 2025.

Stated mandate

DFLV The ETF seeks long-term capital appreciation. Its investment approach combines research, portfolio design, portfolio management, and trading, emphasizing long-term expected-return drivers and broad diversification.

GVLE The Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation. It pursues that objective by investing in companies GSAM considers value opportunities.

Why people hold it

• DFLV Costs 0.21% a year, well under half the 0.55% median for US value funds in its peer group. Active management without the active price tag.
• Cheap alone doesn't get you in. The portfolio screens on value and profitability together, a filter aimed at cut-rate stocks that actually earn money.
• No index to shadow. Dimensional can trade on its own schedule and spreads the money across about 300 large-cap names instead of a handful of bets.
• Sits in the top tier of the US value funds we grade, and it is a multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, so getting in and out is rarely the hard part.

• GVLE Concentrated on purpose. The prospectus targets roughly 20 to 40 holdings, so individual research calls actually move the portfolio instead of getting diluted.sec.gov
• Charges 0.45%, under the median for actively managed US value funds, though systematic rivals like AVLV (0.15%) and WTV (0.12%) come in cheaper.
• Wider hunting ground than the name suggests: any market cap, plus up to 20% of assets in foreign stocks, including emerging markets.sec.gov
• Not a brand-new idea in a new wrapper. It arrived via a 2025 mutual fund conversion and carries the predecessor fund's history back to 2015.gs.com

Worth knowing

• DFLV Not the cheapest seat in the room: AVLV and SEIV run 0.15%, WTV 0.12%. You're paying a bit more for Dimensional's process.
• Being benchmark-free cuts both ways. With no index to measure against, there is no tracking-error scoreboard, and outcomes ride on the manager's judgment.
• Launched in December 2022, so the ETF's own record is short, and a value tilt behaves differently from the broad market. It pays quarterly.

• GVLE Small asset base and light trading volume, so spreads can run wider than in the category's household-name value funds.
• Non-diversified. A stumble at one large holding lands harder here than in a broad value index fund holding hundreds of stocks.sec.gov
• Distributions come once or twice a year, not quarterly or monthly, so it isn't structured as a steady income stream.

Full DFLV profile⁠

Full GVLE profile⁠