FLSP vs MKTN

FLSPAFranklin Systematic Style Premia ETF

MKTNCFederated Hermes MDT Market Neutral ETF

In short

FLSP A hedge-fund style trade in an ETF wrapper. FLSP goes long and short across value, momentum and carry rather than just owning cheap stocks, which makes it the odd one out in a cohort of long-only factor funds.

MKTN A real long/short stock book in an ETF: Federated Hermes' MDT quants buy one basket of US stocks and short another, aiming for gains that lean less on market direction. Costs 1.94% net of a waiver through March 1, 2027.

Stated mandate

FLSP The fund uses a top-down risk-premia strategy focused on value, momentum, and carry factors, taking both long and short positions.

MKTN The Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation while limiting exposure to general stock-market risk through a quantitative, market-neutral strategy that selects long and short publicly traded common stocks.

Why people hold it

• FLSP Runs both long and short positions, so the outcome hinges on the gap between the stocks it likes and the ones it doesn't, not purely on the market's direction.
• Three return sources under one ticker: value, momentum and carry, blended top-down instead of stacked onto a single stock screen.
• Spreads the bet across roughly 300 positions, so no single name carries the fund.
• Live since 2019 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund, with the daily liquidity and transparency of an ETF wrapper around a strategy usually sold in private vehicles.

• MKTN An actual equity long/short book in an ETF wrapper: the MDT quant team buys one set of US stocks and sells another short, by prospectus mandate.yahoo.com
• The stated goal is capital appreciation while limiting exposure to general stock-market risk, spread over a couple hundred long and short US names.
• Longs paired against shorts are built to mute broad market swings, and its measured risk so far has been mild for an equity strategy.
• A waiver trims the cost from 2.27% gross to 1.94% net through March 1, 2027.

Worth knowing

• FLSP At 0.65% a year it costs multiples of plain-vanilla factor peers like VONV (0.06%) and FNDX (0.25%). That is the price tag on the long/short machinery.
• No public index sits behind it, so there is no external yardstick to check it against, and results can look nothing like a US stock index in either direction.
• Distributions land once or twice a year, not on a monthly rhythm.

• MKTN Shorting is costly to run: 1.94% net of that waiver sits above the alternatives category's typical fee, where FLSP charges 0.65% and IALT 0.99%.
• Launched in 2025, so there is roughly a year of live data, not a full cycle.
• Shares trade lightly, which can mean wider spreads than a big index fund, and distributions land only once or twice a year.

Full FLSP profile⁠

Full MKTN profile⁠