Optimize Strategy Index ETF

OPTZ

Market cap $272M

OPTZ hits a new 52-week high, rising 63.2% from its low as tech-driven momentum boosts investor interest.

The Optimize Strategy Index ETF is a passively managed vehicle tracking the Optimize Strategy Index. Since April 2024, OPTZ has solidly beaten IVV, as well as IJR and IJH, delivering 138.7% upside capture from May 2024–April 2026. With 333 equities in the portfolio and over 50% allocated to IT, OPTZ has excellently balanced value and growth, sporting a GARP tilt manifested in a 0.76 WA PEG ratio.

Optimize Strategy Index ETF on just four metrics. Its ER is 0.50% and the ETF has $143 million in AUM. Its GARP features are excellent. OPTZ trades at just 14.77x forward earnings but offers nearly twice the estimated earnings growth of FNDB, Schwab's fundamentals-based all-cap factor fund. Quality is slightly lacking, which I attributed to assigning greater weight to less-profitable small-cap stocks. Through it weighting scheme choice, Optimize Financial seems biased in favor of tech stocks.

I am skeptical of ETFs with passive strategies that charge high fees, like Optimize Strategy Index ETF, which struggles to deliver alpha in tough markets. OPTZ uses quantitative criteria to select innovative American companies, but has a high 0.50% expense ratio, which is concerning for a passive fund. The fund outperformed the S&P 500 in a bullish market but suffered during market shocks, making it risky in the current volatile environment.

For the second week in a row, launches of new ETFs have been sluggish, to say the least. Granted, the five launches that took place this past week were more than the two that launched in the week ended April 19.