JHSC vs VYM

JHSCCJohn Hancock Multifactor Small Cap ETF

VYMAVanguard High Dividend Yield ETF

In short

JHSC Dimensional Fund Advisors built the index; John Hancock put it in an ETF wrapper. JHSC holds roughly 500 US small caps, leaning toward the cheaper and more profitable ones, with a 4% cap on any single company.

VYM The no-frills dividend workhorse. VYM buys the higher-yielding end of the US market, roughly 600 names, for four basis points: no quality screen, no dividend-growth-streak test, just yield, at scale since 2006.

Stated mandate

JHSC The fund seeks investment results that closely correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the John Hancock Dimensional Small Cap Index.

VYM The Fund seeks to track a benchmark index measuring the investment return of common stocks from companies characterized by high dividend yields.

Why people hold it

• JHSC The rulebook comes from Dimensional Fund Advisors, the firm that turned academic factor research into a business. Weights tilt toward smaller, cheaper, more profitable names; high-priced, low-profit stocks are generally screened out.jhinvestments.com
• Roughly 500 stocks with a 4% ceiling on any one company at reconstitution. Single-name blowups land softly in a basket this wide.jhinvestments.com
• Among the smallest companies, the index also drops names with relatively high asset growth. That is a third screen on top of the value and profitability tilts, not a marketing label.jhinvestments.com
• Mechanical and public: the index reconstitutes and rebalances semiannually, with no manager calling audibles, and the fund has run on these rules since its 2017 launch.jhinvestments.com

• VYM Four basis points a year, against a peer-group median near 0.32%. Cheaper than cohort neighbors VONV (0.06%) and FNDX (0.25%).
• Running since 2006 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, so ordinary orders tend to fill at tight spreads.
• Simple mandate: track the FTSE High Dividend Yield Index of US common stocks screened on yield. No manager discretion, no options overlay, plain 1940-Act fund.vanguard.com
• Pays quarterly, and among 100-plus value and multifactor rivals it stands as one of the strongest overall packages in the group.

Worth knowing

• JHSC The fee is 0.42% net of a waiver through July 31, 2027 (0.45% gross), above the category median and well above plain-vanilla factor peers such as VONV at 0.06% and LRGF at 0.08%.
• It trades thinly next to the category's heavyweights, so bid/ask spreads can run wider and large orders need more care.
• Those screens are the whole point, and they mean the portfolio can drift from a plain small-cap index in either direction for stretches at a time.jhinvestments.com

• VYM The screen is yield, not payout growth or dividend quality, so a company can qualify simply because its share price fell.
• This is a value slice by design, tilted to established payers, so it behaves differently from a total US market fund.
• Roughly 600 holdings, but weight leans toward the largest payers, so the top of the roster does more of the work than the count suggests.

Full JHSC profile⁠

Full VYM profile⁠