FTXN vs PXE

FTXNBFirst Trust Nasdaq Oil & Gas ETF

PXEDInvesco Energy Exploration & Production ETF

In short

FTXN Most oil and gas ETFs just hand you the biggest drillers by size. FTXN screens the US oil and gas patch on factor signals instead, holding about 40 names weighted by those scores. A rules-based tilt on a famously cyclical sector.

PXE The quant twist on US drillers. Rather than rank every exploration and production name by size, PXE's Intellidex index scores them on momentum, earnings momentum, quality, management action and value, then holds about 30. Trading since 2005.

Stated mandate

FTXN The Fund seeks to track the performance of the Nasdaq US Smart Oil & Gas Index before fees and expenses through an indexing strategy.

PXE The fund is based on the Dynamic Energy Exploration & Production Intellidex Index, which covers 30 U.S. companies engaged in exploring for and producing natural resources used to generate energy.

Why people hold it

• FTXN The "Smart" in the index name is literal: holdings are selected and sized by factor ranking, not market cap alone, so the largest producer doesn't automatically get the largest slot.ftportfolios.com
• About 40 holdings, all oil and gas. No utilities, no renewables filler, no diluting the theme you actually came for.ftportfolios.com
• Running since 2016 and it sticks tightly to the Nasdaq index it names in its prospectus. What the documents promise is what the portfolio delivers.
• Trades actively for a niche sector fund, so getting in and out is rarely the hard part.

• PXE The index screens US exploration and production companies on price momentum, earnings momentum, quality, management action and value, then holds about 30. Not a size-ranked roster.invesco.com
• Listed in 2005, it predates most of the E&P shelf and has traded through multiple oil booms and busts with the same rules-based approach.
• Portfolio makeup is the fund's strongest suit in this peer group: roughly 30 US energy names, spread across the field instead of anchored to one or two giants.
• Physical stock ownership, at least 90% of assets in index constituents, and cash gets passed along quarterly.invesco.com

Worth knowing

• FTXN 0.60% a year is the price of the factor machinery. Plain cap-weighted rivals like XOP (0.35%) and IEO (0.37%) charge roughly half that for the same corner of the market.
• Concentrated, single-sector equity: the ride tends to follow the price of the barrel, with no defensive ballast when energy turns.
• A mid-sized fund, not one of the category's household-name giants, and it pays distributions quarterly rather than monthly.

• PXE The screen costs: 0.63% net of a waiver through August 31, 2028 (0.67% gross), above the category median. XOP charges 0.35%, IEO 0.37%, PBOG 0.13%.
• Thinly traded next to the category's heavyweights, so the gap between bid and ask can be wider at the moment you buy or sell.
• About 30 stocks in one slice of one sector. Drilling economics swing with the oil price, and each holding carries real weight.

Full FTXN profile⁠

Full PXE profile⁠