FLJH vs GSJY

FLJHAFranklin FTSE Japan Hedged ETF

GSJYBGoldman Sachs ActiveBeta Japan Equity ETF

In short

FLJH Japan stocks with the yen taken out of the equation. FLJH hedges the currency back to dollars for 0.09% a year, the same fee as Franklin's unhedged twin and a fraction of the typical Japan fund.

GSJY Most Japan ETFs just buy the market. GSJY runs Goldman's ActiveBeta screen instead, tilting a basket of roughly 220 Japanese stocks toward value, momentum, quality and low volatility for a quarter-percent fee.

Stated mandate

FLJH The Fund seeks to closely track, before fees and expenses, the performance of the FTSE Japan Capped Hedged Index through passive indexing, using replication or representative sampling.

GSJY The fund seeks investment results that closely correspond, before fees and expenses, to the Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta Japan Equity Index.

Why people hold it

• FLJH 0.09% a year. Currency hedging usually carries a surcharge; here it costs the same as Franklin's unhedged FLJP and far less than the median Japan fund.
• The hedge is the whole point: it aims to strip out yen-dollar moves so what you own is Japanese share prices, not a bet on the currency.
• Broad and deliberately un-top-heavy: roughly 500 Japanese companies tracked through a capped index, so no single name can swell into an outsized slice.
• Live since 2017 and one of the stronger builds in a crowded Japan peer group of index trackers.

• GSJY Four factor tilts (value, momentum, quality, low volatility) in one ticker, in a corner of the market where nearly everything else is plain cap-weighted Japan.
• 0.25% a year, half the typical fee in the Japan group. Multi-factor strategies usually cost more than the index funds they sit beside, not less.
• It hugs the Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta Japan Equity Index it names, with holdings that match the stated mandate. For a rules-based fund, that is the entire job.
• Live since 2016, so the recipe has run through real Japanese market weather rather than a backtest, and it stands in the upper half of its Japan peer group.

Worth knowing

• FLJH The hedge cuts both ways. When the yen strengthens against the dollar, you give up the tailwind an unhedged Japan fund would capture.
• Thinly traded and small next to the Japan heavyweights, so bid-ask spreads can run wider than headline fee comparisons suggest.
• Distributions land once or twice a year, not monthly or quarterly, so income arrives in lumps.

• GSJY Straight Japan exposure comes cheaper elsewhere: FLJP at 0.09% and BBJP at 0.19%. The gap is what the factor tilts cost you.
• A smaller, lightly traded fund next to the category's giants, so the spread can matter as much as the expense ratio on the way in and out.
• Those tilts cut both ways: the fund can look meaningfully different from a standard Japan index. Cash comes back once or twice a year, not quarterly.

Full FLJH profile⁠

Full GSJY profile⁠