DFLV vs TALV

DFLVADimensional US Large Cap Value ETF

TALVCTransamerica Large Value Active 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.

TALV Transamerica hands its large-value sleeve to Great Lakes, whose quant screen hunts stocks that are both cheap and high quality. It arrived in December 2025 into an aisle full of index-built value funds, priced below the active-value median.

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.

TALV The fund seeks long-term 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.

• TALV At 0.49% a year it undercuts the typical actively managed US value ETF, where the median fee sits at 0.55%.
• The mandate is specific rather than vague: Great Lakes' proprietary quantitative tool screens for quality and value, with long-term capital appreciation as the stated goal.
• The stock portfolio is the strongest piece of the package, better built than most rivals in the active value aisle.
• A plain 1940 Act ETF: no leverage, no derivatives overlay, no structural asterisks.

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.

• TALV It trades thinly, so spreads can be wider than the household names in the value aisle.
• It opened in December 2025, leaving a short record to judge the process by and only a brief window of risk data.
• Systematic value rivals such as AVLV (0.15%) and DFLV (0.21%) cost far less; the fee here buys active judgment, not the lowest sticker.

Full DFLV profile⁠

Full TALV profile⁠