VictoryShares Intl Hi Div Vol Wtd ETF's Average Process Pillar and People Pillar ratings result in a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Neutral. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the least expensive fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy receives an Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained a significant underweight position in liquidity exposure and an overweight in yield exposure compared with category peers. Low liquidity risk exposure is attributed to stocks with a low trading volume, limiting managers' flexibility. And a high yield exposure is rooted in holding high dividend-paying or buyback stocks. The strategy’s management team earns an Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm an Average Parent Pillar rating. People Pillar and Parent Pillar ratings for this strategy are indirectly assigned by a Morningstar analyst rather than algorithmically derived. Please see the notes following each pillar section for more details. The details of assigning methods can be found in each pillar section.

Analyst Rating

Telos

Ormat Technologies

Tractor Supply

Rockwell Collins

AT&T

GlaxoSmithKline

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce

WABCO Hlds

Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category benchmark on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. VictoryShares Intl Hi Div Vol Wtd ETF earns an Average Process Pillar rating. 

The predominant contributor to the rating is that this fund tracks an index. Historical data, such as Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, finds that passively managed funds have generally outperformed their active counterparts, especially over longer time horizons. Noteworthy risk-adjusted performance also bolsters the rating. This can be seen in the fund's five-year alpha calculated relative to the category index, which suggests that the managers have shown skill in their allocation of risk. Lastly, the process is limited by the parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 47%. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and outperformed their respective category's median Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return for the period. The parent's modest success ratio suggests that the firm could do better across its fund lineup.

 This strategy skews toward smaller, deeper value companies than its average peer in the Foreign Large Value Morningstar Category. Analyzing additional factors, this strategy continually held some stocks with low trading volume over the last few years. Less-liquid stocks might offer strong returns to compensate for their risks, but they can be harder and more expensive to trade in bear markets. In the latest month, the strategy was also less exposed to the Liquidity factor compared with Morningstar Category peers. The managers have also tended to overweight yield during recent years, shown by the portfolio's high exposure to dividends or buybacks. High-yield stocks tend to be associated with more mature, profitable businesses that can grow as well as provide a stream of income. Such stocks could suffer, however, if setbacks force them to cut their dividends. Compared with category peers, the strategy also had more exposure to the Yield factor in the most recent month. Additionally, this strategy has exhibited a tilt toward low-volatility stocks in these years, meaning companies with a lower historical standard deviation of returns over its peers. These low-risk stocks are typically at their best when markets are not. Low volatility exposure contributes to limited loss on the downside at the cost of a lag in bull markets. In recent months, the strategy also had less Volatility factor exposure than its peers. More information on a fund and its respective category's factor exposure can be found in the Factor Profile module within the Portfolio section. 

 The portfolio is overweight in communication services and utilities relative to the category average by 12.4 and 8.3 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are healthcare and consumer cyclical, underweight the average by 7.5 and 7.2 percentage points of assets, respectively. The portfolio has 104 holdings and is about as top-heavy as the category average, with 16.3% of assets in the top 10 holdings. And finally, in terms of portfolio turnover, this portfolio trades more frequently than the average peer in its category, which may result in higher trading costs for investors and cause a drag on performance.

Average

Process

Victory Capital’s team is good but unexceptional, earning the strategy an Average People Pillar rating. The fund takes a solo manager approach, with Mannik Dhillon as the only listed manager at the helm, who brings nine years of portfolio management experience to the table. They manage a total of 16 strategies, with solid long-term prospects. The strategies average a Bronze asset-weighted Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating a position to deliver positive alpha relative to the category median in aggregate. With only one manager listed on the strategy, the passive strategy is vulnerable to key-person risk. 

 Note: This People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. Morningstar analysts evaluate the People Pillar for passive products at the brand level and may also differentiate by asset class. There is at least one other passive strategy at the firm that is covered by a Morningstar analyst, so the People Pillar rating of the fund is inherited from the rating that the Morningstar analyst assigned to investment vehicles under the same brand name.

People

As Victory Capital Management expands a roster of investment teams that runs the gamut,  it retains an Average Parent rating.

Victory operates a multiaffiliate model. It centralizes operations, compliance, and distribution while giving its 12 franchises investment autonomy. The franchise lineup had long been composed of those primarily focused on small/mid-cap equities. But the 2019 acquisition of fixed-income shop USAA Investments (which was rebranded as Victory Income Investors in April 2023) represented a significant change to that model. The firm has continued to broaden from there, acquiring three new franchises since the start of 2021: THB Asset Management (an environmental, social, and governance specialist), New Energy Capital (an alternatives manager), and WestEnd Advisors (a third-party model strategist). Overall, Victory is as big and diverse as ever: Its assets under management as of March 2023 was $157.6 billion, much higher than the $52.8 billion level as of December 2018.

Victory’s bright spots include Sycamore Capital and Trivalent Investments, which boast strong investment cultures, good levels of manager ownership, and solid capacity management processes. But there are questions elsewhere. Victory Capital Solutions has made some questionable subadvisor changes and dubious exchange-traded fund launches in recent years; Victory Income Investors has seen several departures since the 2019 acquisition and will absorb another franchise, Incore, in September 2023.

Parent

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