DFLV vs MAVF

DFLVADimensional US Large Cap Value ETF

MAVFFMatrix Advisors Value 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.

MAVF A 1996-vintage value strategy wearing an ETF ticker. Matrix picks US stocks by its own definition of cheap, aiming at appreciation and income both. Old-school active work in an aisle now ruled by rules-based screens.

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.

MAVF The Fund seeks total return through capital appreciation and current income.

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.

• MAVF Actual stock picking. The portfolio is built on Matrix's own definition of value, not an off-the-shelf index screen, and the fund says so in its prospectus.
• The strategy dates to 1996, meaning it has run through the dot-com bust, 2008 and everything since. Track records that long are scarce in the value-ETF aisle.
• Two jobs, stated plainly: capital appreciation and current income. Shareholders get distributions on a set annual or semiannual rhythm.
• Simple plumbing. A standard 1940 Act US equity fund with no leverage or exotic wrapper mechanics to decode before you own it.

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.

• MAVF The 0.75% expense ratio sits above the typical US value fund's 0.55%, and well above index-built peers like AVLV (0.15%) and WTV (0.12%). Active judgment is the thing you're paying for.
• Small and thinly traded. Spreads can run wider than at the aisle's giants, and sizable orders can push the price around.
• In a crowded field of 50-plus US value funds, our review lands it near the back, mostly on cost and trading friction rather than how it follows its mandate.

Full DFLV profile⁠

Full MAVF profile⁠