IMCG vs STXG

IMCGAiShares Morningstar Mid-Cap Growth ETF

STXGBStrive 1000 Growth ETF

In short

IMCG Growth investing usually means megacaps. IMCG works the middle of the market instead: roughly 300 mid-cap growth names, indexed since 2004, for six basis points a year.

STXG Growth with a wider net: STXG follows the Bloomberg US 1000 Growth Index, holding roughly 700 large- and mid-cap growth names rather than just the megacap slice. A challenger fund priced at the middle of its category.

Stated mandate

IMCG The Fund seeks to track an index of U.S. mid-capitalization equities with growth characteristics. Its strategy uses representative sampling and generally invests at least 80% of assets in securities from the Underlying Index.

STXG The Fund seeks to track the total return of large- and mid-capitalization U.S. equity securities with growth characteristics.

Why people hold it

• IMCG 0.06% a year, one third of the 0.18% median for its growth-fund peer group. Mid-cap indexing at large-cap-index prices.
• The growth leaderboard is stacked with large-cap funds (VUG, SCHG, SPYG, VONG). IMCG covers the middle instead, holding about 300 mid-cap growth names.
• Sticks close to the Morningstar mid-cap growth index it follows, one of the tighter tracking jobs in its peer group.
• Running since 2004 under the iShares roof, with a multi-billion-dollar asset base behind it.

• STXG Casts a broader growth net than the S&P 500 crowd: large- and mid-cap names, roughly 700 of them, so mid-caps ride along with the giants.
• Straight index mechanics, no stock-picking discretion: it follows the Bloomberg US 1000 Growth Index and has stayed tight to that mandate.
• Fee sits at 0.18%, the median for growth ETFs, and the fund distributes quarterly.
• Lands in the upper half of a crowded growth peer group on build quality, with high confidence in the underlying evidence.

Worth knowing

• IMCG Moderately traded rather than heavily traded, so bid-ask spreads can run wider than the megacap growth ETFs sitting beside it in the category.
• This is a size-and-style bet. Mid-cap growth companies tend to move more sharply than the broad market, in both directions.
• Distributions land quarterly, but a growth screen is not built around income.

• STXG The index behemoths (VUG, SCHG, VONG) offer similar large-cap growth exposure for a few basis points, so this one costs more per unit of beta.
• Smaller and more lightly traded than the category's household names, so spreads tend to be wider and size matters on entry and exit.
• Launched in 2022, so it has no full market cycle behind it, unlike the growth funds it competes with.

Full IMCG profile⁠

Full STXG profile⁠