FAB vs IUSV

FABCFirst Trust Multi Cap Value AlphaDEX Fund

IUSVAiShares Core S&P U.S. Value ETF

In short

FAB One of the original 2007 AlphaDEX funds: rather than buying value by size, it scores stocks on value and growth factors, cuts the weakest ranks, and tier-weights the roughly 700 survivors across large, mid and small caps.

IUSV A value fund with a wider net: it tracks the S&P 900 Value Index, which screens S&P 500 and MidCap 400 stocks on book value, earnings and sales versus price. Roughly 700 names, 0.04% a year, running since 2000.

Stated mandate

FAB The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Nasdaq AlphaDEX Multi Cap ValueTM Index. It normally invests at least 90% of net assets in securities comprising that Index.

IUSV The fund seeks to track the S&P 900 Value Index, which represents large- and mid-capitalization U.S. value equities. Value characteristics are identified using book value, earnings, and sales relative to price.

Why people hold it

• FAB The rules rank stocks on value and growth factors, drop the lowest-ranked names, then sort the keepers into five weight tiers, so higher-ranked picks get the bigger slice.sec.govnasdaq.com
• Weights follow rank, not market cap (equal weighting inside each tier), so the portfolio has a different shape than cap-weighted value peers like VTV and IWD.nasdaq.com
• Roughly 700 holdings reaching down into mid and small caps, a wider value net than a large-cap-only screen.
• It sticks to the job description: at least 90% of net assets in its Nasdaq index constituents, and it has tracked that index closely.

• IUSV Costs 0.04% a year, a fraction of the typical US value ETF, and level with the cheapest of its large peers like SCHV.
• The index reaches past the S&P 500 into the S&P MidCap 400, so mid-cap value names come along. Large-cap-only rivals such as SCHV stop short of them.spindices.com
• A 2000 vintage and now a multi-billion-dollar iShares Core holding: it trades actively, tracks its index closely, and pays quarterly.

Worth knowing

• FAB At 0.66% a year it costs several times the roughly 0.20% median for US value ETFs. The quant screening and reweighting is what the fee buys.
• Shares change hands thinly, which can mean wider bid-ask spreads and more slippage on bigger orders than the giants of the category.
• The index is reconstituted and rebalanced quarterly, so the roster turns over faster than a slow-moving cap-weighted index, which can add trading and tax friction.sec.gov

• IUSV S&P's style system splits the parent index by formula, and stocks with both value and growth traits can sit in each. This is the cheap half of the market, not a deep-value sleeve.spglobal.comspglobal.com 2
• The screen is pure price ratios (book value, earnings, sales), with no profitability or quality filter, so cheap-for-a-reason names are part of the deal.spglobal.com
• Holdings are float-market-cap weighted, so the biggest value names drive most of the movement.spglobal.com

Full FAB profile⁠

Full IUSV profile⁠