Dimensional US Small Cap ETF

DFAS

Market cap $11.4B

DFAS offers diversified small-cap exposure with over 2,000 holdings, focusing on high profitability and disciplined valuation, outperforming the Russell 2000 over time. The fund avoids excessive micro-cap and biotech exposure, maintaining above-average profitability and a balanced sector allocation versus peers. DFAS has slightly higher expenses but benefits from low turnover, strong liquidity, and a quality tilt that supports resilience in challenging environments.

Zachary Evens: Small stocks have underperformed their larger counterparts for a long time, prompting some people, including myself, to ask: why bother with small-cap ETFs? While there's an argument to be made on both sides, small-cap valuations are undeniably low, offering investors some upside if they converge with their fair value. Small-cap stocks are risky, though, and investors should control risk if they aim to capture that upside.

Strong returns in U.S. stocks, particularly over the past two plus years, have led investors to question the relative lack of companies going public via the IPO process — as well as the potential implications for the IPO market in the long term. According to active equity managers, a combination of increased public market regulation, a reduced pipeline of potential offerings following the prior boom, the rising role of large private asset managers in capital raising, and near-term uncertainty surrounding government policy are all contributing factors. At Russell Investments, we think investors benefit from taking a long-term view.

Little-known China AI startup DeepSeek sent fear rippling throughout the markets this week by announcing major strides in its large language model technology at just a fraction of the cost of what many experts thought possible. That sparked a mini-collapse among big-cap tech stocks like Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia, which tumbled 20% at its low.

Every new year brings with it a new opportunity to stop for a moment, take stock of where we currently sit, revisit resolutions, and refresh outlooks.

The new year is poised for a resurgence in tech IPOs, as lower interest rates and an investor shift to small- and mid-cap companies combine to create a more welcoming market for debuts. The current environment presents the most favorable conditions for the recovery of IPOs in the past three years. The S&P 400 Midcap Index and the S&P 600 Index have outperformed the S&P 500 Index since the US election Nov. 5.

Small caps have underperformed large caps, but I believe they will outperform over time, making the Dimensional U.S. Small Cap ETF a strong consideration. The DFAS ETF is highly diversified, with no position over 0.45%, and focuses on sectors like Financials and Industrials, offering a value tilt. DFAS has a 0.26% expense ratio and uses Dimensional's factor-based approach, potentially outperforming passive small-cap ETFs despite higher volatility.

A few small-cap ETFs have been hoovering around an all-time high level.

The growth of active ETFs has propelled a wave of mutual fund-to-ETF conversions. Nearly 80% of all new product launches in both the third quarter and for the full year have been actively managed.

Rob Harvey, Vice President of Dimensional Funds, and Ben Slavin, Global Head of ETFs for BNY Mellon, join CNBC's Bob Pisani on the ‘Halftime Report' to discuss the alternatives to small cap ETFs.