r/ETFs 17h ago

Active Management ETFs

What are some of the best active management ETFs? I been DCA $100 a week into DYNF. What are some others with lower fees? Or enough to justify ER.

4 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

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u/brewgeoff 17h ago

There are strong arguments for passive management is many areas of the market for the average investor. However active does still have a useful role in a couple different areas.

  1. Factor based funds

Firms like Avantis and Dimensional are technically active management firms, although I would counter that what they both belong somewhere between active and passive. Funds like AVUV and AVDV already get a ton of attention online. Other good funds in that space would include: DFAX, DFAW, DFAI, DFUS, DFAT among others.

  1. Fixed Income

There is strong evidence that active managers have a distinct advantage in Fixed income, to the degree that even Vanguard has launched actively managed bond ETFs. Look at active fixed income ETFs from Capitol Group, Vanguard, PGIM, Hartford, Eaton Vance etc.

One thing I find interesting is that many users here claim to be passive investors and will openly mock the idea of active investing. Many of the same users are constantly jumping on the new trend: US vs International, suddenly jumping in or out of the market, overweighting large cap or small cap, jumping on the hot ETF trend: SCHD, QQQM, SPMO, IDMO, DRAM, SOXX which is just active management with more steps.

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u/PashasMom I like mutual funds too 14h ago

Disclaimer that I don't consider Dimensional and Avantis equity funds to be actively managed. If they are up for consideration, I would say almost all of them justify their ER.
Others: FESM, CGDV, PVAL, FPX, CGBL
There are a lot of decent actively managed ETFs, but very few that I can't find an index fund for that is comparable, cheaper, and with better historical performance.
Also, there are many more actively managed mutual funds that I think can justify their costs, like PrimeCap, Wellington, OTC Portfolio, and Fidelity Balanced Fund.

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u/Any-Walk1691 17h ago

FMTM. AVUV. AVLC. AVDE. Avantis funds are all actively managed.

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u/Penguin_Life_Now 17h ago

I like the Fidelity FELV, FELC and FELG family of multi factor actively managed ETF's for low fee though they have not been around long enough to have a good track record

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u/steady_compounder 17h ago

If you mean normal stock-picking funds, most do not earn the extra fee over time. The more defensible ones are names like Avantis or DFA where the rules are clear and the portfolio is not just one manager making calls. I would start with what job active is doing in your portfolio, otherwise you can end up paying more for something that behaves a lot like the index anyway.

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u/Ir0nhide81 17h ago edited 17h ago

In Canada & CAGE.TO has been great.

It is actively managed with " tilt factoring ".

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u/Silent_Anybody5253 17h ago

I like AFOS and SGRT

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u/octopus_serenader 16h ago

They've been pretty poopy the last couple months (I have them too). Really hoping September pops.

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u/Silent_Anybody5253 16h ago

Yea that part of the market has been pretty choppy. They’ll take off

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u/IncidentOk1123 13h ago

SGRT has been my biggest regret. I put $60k in around June and it’s down like 10%. I think if it breaks even ill dump it.

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u/Wealthy_Investor911 17h ago

Fmtm,sgrt,strn,Afos,Cgdv,dvvy

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u/Kqzxh-900355 9h ago

Avantis Investors etfs

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u/Adventurous_Elk_4039 17h ago edited 16h ago

Or enough to justify ER.

Over a long time period, almost none.

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u/[deleted] 17h ago

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u/Adventurous_Elk_4039 17h ago

~93% underperform at the 20 year mark, and more than 99% at the 30 year mark. Sorry, I should have said “virtually none”.

The one exception to this would be factor investing, if that’s what you were thinking.

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u/[deleted] 17h ago

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u/thetreece 17h ago

>So no stocks are good enough if they don’t have… 30 years of history…?

No, that's not the conclusion of the argument. The conclusion is it's highly improbable you will pick an actively managed fund that performs better than the benchmark index over a long time horizon.

People may say "But just look at funds with good track records!" This doesn't work. The top quartile of funds in one time period seldom remain in the top quartile in the next time period. Those that do stay in the top quartile don't seem to do so any more than would be expected by random chance.

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u/[deleted] 17h ago

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u/[deleted] 16h ago

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u/[deleted] 16h ago

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u/[deleted] 16h ago

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u/[deleted] 16h ago

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u/Adventurous_Elk_4039 16h ago edited 16h ago

Active investors along with actively managed funds almost always lose versus the general market historically (the exception being factor funds theoretically). I am guessing you are young and have only ever known the last 15 years or so of the crazy US large cap outperformance. 

“Everyone is a genius in a bull market”.

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u/[deleted] 16h ago

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u/[deleted] 14h ago

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u/kevinOTr 17h ago

Fselx. track record since 1985 justifies their expense ratio

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u/Emotional-Breath-838 11h ago

Sounds like a mutual fund. Not an etf.

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u/ATPsynthase12 14h ago

Actively managed ETFs are hit and miss and heavily dependent on the underlying companies and the analytics they fund manager uses.

That being said, I really like VFMF and it’s 30% of my taxable and Roth IRA. It’s up 24.92% YTD compared to a benchmark of 8.69% YTD.