DUSG vs SMLL

DUSGAU.S. Small Cap Growth Portfolio: ETF Class Shares

SMLLFHarbor Active Small Cap ETF (SMLL)

In short

DUSG A Dimensional small-cap growth strategy that finally got a ticker. DUSG is an exchange-traded share class of a portfolio running since 2012, screening small US companies for high profitability and cheaper relative price.

SMLL Harbor's 2024 entry into small caps skips the thousand-stock dragnet: roughly 50 U.S. small-cap names, actively picked, chasing long-term total return. A concentrated stock-picker's take in a corner of the market ruled by broad quant sweeps.

Stated mandate

DUSG The Portfolio seeks long-term capital appreciation.

SMLL The Fund seeks long-term total return.

Why people hold it

• DUSG Not a startup fund with a launch-day portfolio. The underlying strategy has run since 2012, and the ETF class is a new door into the same book of stocks.businesswire.com
• The screen does two jobs at once: small-cap growth companies, filtered for high profitability and lower relative price, instead of whatever the index says is popular.dimensional.com
• 0.33% a year for a systematically managed factor strategy, sitting right around the middle of the multifactor pack rather than at the premium end.
• Broad and diversified by design, holding a wide sweep of US small caps in a billion-dollar-plus portfolio, not a handful of high-conviction names.dimensional.com

• SMLL Roughly 50 holdings, not a thousand. This is a concentrated active portfolio, so individual stock picks actually move the needle instead of getting diluted into an index blur.
• The mandate is refreshingly plain: long-term total return from U.S. small-cap equities, mainly common and preferred stock. No sleeves, no derivatives overlay, no story to decode.
• Backed by Harbor, a manager with a long history of packaging outside stock-picking teams into funds rather than running everything in-house.

Worth knowing

• DUSG It trades thinly. Light volume can mean wider gaps between the bid and the ask than you get with the household-name index ETFs.
• Distributions land once or twice a year, not monthly. The stated job here is long-term capital appreciation, not a paycheck.
• Fair pricing, not bargain pricing: broad US growth exposure in the same peer group costs far less (IUSG, 0.04%), minus the small-cap and profitability screens.

• SMLL You pay 0.80% a year for the active seat. Systematic small-cap rivals like AVUV and AVSC charge 0.25%, so the stock picking has real ground to make up.
• Concentration cuts both ways. With about 50 names, a handful of picks can drive returns in either direction far more than in a broad small-cap basket.
• Launched in 2024 and thinly traded, so the track record is short and bid-ask spreads tend to be wider than on the category's household names.

Full DUSG profile⁠

Full SMLL profile⁠