NBDS vs XITK

NBDSCNeuberger Berman Disrupters ETF

XITKAState Street SPDR FactSet Innovative Technology ETF

In short

NBDS Most disruption funds hand the job to a rulebook. NBDS hands it to Neuberger Berman's analysts: roughly 30 hand-picked companies whose technologies or services may reshape their markets, priced at the category's going rate.

XITK Most innovation funds pick a theme and hope. XITK lets the data pick: FactSet ranks tech and electronic-media segments by growth, keeps the top quartile, then equal-weights roughly 100 names so no single giant runs the show.

Stated mandate

NBDS The Fund targets companies offering differentiated solutions, technologies, or services that may create or reshape markets, using internal research and analysis to identify such businesses.

XITK The fund seeks to track the total return of the FactSet Innovative Technology Index before fees and expenses. Its mandate targets innovative technology-related companies with robust revenue growth and leading-edge products or services.

Why people hold it

• NBDS Human stock-picking, not a screen. Managers use internal research to hunt companies with differentiated solutions, technologies or services that may create or reshape markets.
• Concentrated by design: about 30 names, so a winner actually moves the needle instead of getting diluted inside a sprawling innovation basket.
• Active management at index-fund pricing for this corner: the 0.65% expense ratio sits right at the median for disruptive-innovation ETFs.
• Holds up well against a crowded field, landing in the upper half of its disruptive-innovation peer group on our overall read.

• XITK Costs 0.45% a year, comfortably under the 0.65% median for disruptive-innovation funds, and it does it inside a plain index wrapper from a major ETF shop.
• Equal weighting at each reset gives the hundredth holding the same slot as the first, so results lean on the whole basket rather than two or three mega-caps.factset.com
• Screens segments, not slogans: only companies drawing most of their revenue from the fastest-growing corners of tech and electronic media make the cut.factset.comssga.com
• Trading since 2016, giving it a live record across several tech cycles, and it sits in the upper tier of our innovation-fund cohort review.

Worth knowing

• NBDS Thinly traded. Shares change hands lightly, which can mean wider gaps between buy and sell prices than the big names in the theme.
• Cheaper index routes to similar ground exist, including KOMP at 0.20% and XT at 0.46%.
• A 30-stock portfolio of high-growth disruptors concentrates risk, and the fund only launched in 2022, so the track record is short.

• XITK Growth-screened tech, equal-weighted, means smaller names carry a giant's weight. Expect a rougher ride than a cap-weighted tech fund.
• Thinly traded for its category and modest in size, so bid-ask spreads can run wider than the household-name tech ETFs.
• Cheaper shelfmates exist: KOMP runs a broad new-economy basket for 0.20%.

Full NBDS profile⁠

Full XITK profile⁠