OPTZ vs VYM

OPTZCOptimize Strategy Index ETF

VYMAVanguard High Dividend Yield ETF

In short

OPTZ A 2024 newcomer built on one idea: screen US-listed stocks for quality and momentum, track the index, charge 0.25%. Priced under the typical multifactor peer, but still a small and lightly traded fund.

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

OPTZ The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the total return of the Optimize Strategy Index. The Index selects U.S.-listed equities from a broad market universe and evaluates them using quality and momentum criteria.

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

• OPTZ At 0.25%, it undercuts the median expense ratio in its multifactor peer group and matches Schwab's FNDX, though broad index giants like IUSG and VYM sit well below that.
• No manager hunches. The Optimize Strategy Index ranks a broad US equity universe on quality and momentum, and the fund's job is simply to track it.
• Conventional plumbing: a 1940 Act ETF holding US-listed stocks, with the factor tilt advertised up front rather than buried in a strategy footnote.

• 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

• OPTZ Thinly traded, so bid-ask spreads can run wider than in the household-name factor funds. Order size and timing matter more here.
• It launched in April 2024, so there is no record yet across a full market cycle to judge how the quality-momentum screen holds up.
• A small fund next to the Vanguard and iShares factor lineups, and payouts come annually or semiannually rather than quarterly.

• 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 OPTZ profile⁠

Full VYM profile⁠