ILCG vs QMID

ILCGAiShares Morningstar Growth ETF

QMIDCWisdomTree U.S. MidCap Quality Growth Fund

In short

ILCG Growth by Morningstar's rulebook. A 2004-vintage iShares fund that screens large and mid caps for above-average earnings, sales, cash-flow and book-value growth, and charges four basis points to do it.

QMID Plenty of mid-cap growth funds buy growth and hope profits follow. QMID ranks mid-caps on both, blending earnings and sales growth with return on equity and assets, then keeps only the top-scoring 30% and bars real estate, utilities and banks outright.

Stated mandate

ILCG The fund aims to follow an index of U.S. large- and mid-cap stocks chosen for above-average earnings, sales, cash-flow, and book-value growth.

QMID QMID seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the WisdomTree U.S. MidCap Quality Growth Index. It uses passive indexing and generally representative sampling to pursue that objective.

Why people hold it

• ILCG 0.04% a year. The typical fund in its factor peer group charges roughly eight times that, so almost none of the return leaks out the fee door.
• Uses Morningstar's growth definition (earnings, sales, cash flow, book value) rather than S&P's or Russell's, and reaches into mid caps, not just the S&P 500.ishares.com
• Trading since 2004, a multi-billion-dollar fund holding roughly 300 stocks. Long-running plumbing, not a launch-week experiment.
• Tracking has been tight, and the fund sits in the upper half of its factor cohort overall, with cost doing much of the heavy lifting.

• QMID Two screens, not one: the index scores companies on growth (analyst forecasts plus trailing 3-year earnings and sales growth) and quality (trailing 3-year ROE and ROA), then takes the top 30%.wisdomtree.com
• Real estate, utilities and banks are ineligible by rule, a deliberate swerve around the mid-cap corners WisdomTree flags for slower growth and lumpier earnings.wisdomtree.comwisdomtree.com 2
• High-conviction by construction: roughly 130 stocks, market-cap weighted, rescreened each May and November. Narrower than the sprawling mid-cap growth benchmarks.wisdomtree.com
• Straightforward plumbing: a passive 1940 Act fund that samples its own published index, with the rulebook public rather than left to manager judgment.

Worth knowing

• ILCG Pure growth means no value ballast, and the ride has been bumpier than most funds in its factor group. The style can sit out of favor for long stretches.
• Concentration runs high for the cohort: cap-weighted growth screens funnel a big share of the fund into the same handful of mega-cap names.
• Moderately traded, not a tape leader. Sibling IUSG applies S&P's growth definition at the same 0.04%, so the pick is which index rulebook you prefer.

• QMID You pay for the screen. The 0.38% expense ratio sits above the growth-cohort median of 0.18%, and index rivals like IMCG charge 0.06%.
• Still a small, thinly traded fund since its 2024 launch. Spreads can be wider than the mega-funds in the category, which makes limit orders the sane default.
• WisdomTree classes the fund as non-diversified, so a single holding can move it more than a broader basket would.wisdomtree.com

Full ILCG profile⁠

Full QMID profile⁠