DFLV vs MVPA

DFLVADimensional US Large Cap Value ETF

MVPAFMiller Value Partners Appreciation 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.

MVPA A boutique stock-picker's take on value: no index to hug, just a capital-appreciation mandate and a manager's judgment, in an ETF wrapper since 2024. You pay active-manager pricing for the privilege.

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.

MVPA The Fund seeks capital appreciation.

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.

• MVPA Genuinely active. The stated objective is plain capital appreciation, so the manager picks stocks rather than tracking a rules-based value screen.
• At 0.60%, the fee sits a whisker above the 0.55% median for active value funds. Boutique active management, priced near the middle of that pack.
• Appreciation-first by design. Distributions come once or twice a year at most, not monthly. This is a growth-of-capital mandate, not an income one.

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.

• MVPA That 0.60% is four to five times what the top-rated systematic value funds charge (WTV at 0.12%, AVLV at 0.15%). The stock picking has to earn that gap back.
• Thinly traded. Limit orders matter here, and a large order can push the price around more than it would in a household-name value ETF.
• Launched in 2024, so the record is short, and price swings have run wider than those of the typical fund in its value peer group.

Full DFLV profile⁠

Full MVPA profile⁠