Amplify Cash Flow Dividend Leaders ETF’s management team is rated Average, but a solid investment process still helps this strategy retain its Morningstar Medalist Rating of Silver. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the cheapest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy's investment process inspires confidence and earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained a significant overweight position in liquidity exposure and quality exposure compared with category peers. High liquidity exposure is attributed to stocks with a high trading volume, lending managers more flexibility. And a high quality exposure is rooted in holding stocks with low financial leverage and strong returns on equity. The strategy’s management team earns an Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm a Below Average Parent Pillar rating, and this rating is inherited from vehicles belonging to the same branding entity and is indirectly assigned by an analyst.

Analyst Rating

Vistra Energy

Owens Corning

Commercial Metals

QUALCOMM

FedEx

Nexstar Media Group

Fidelity National Information

Universal Forest Products

eBay

Berry Global Group

Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category index on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. Amplify Cash Flow Dividend Leaders ETF earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. 

The largest contributor to the rating is that this fund tracks an index. Historical data, like Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, finds that passively managed funds have generally outperformed their active counterparts, especially over longer time horizons. The firm's five-year retention rate of 93% also contributes to the process. Lastly, the process is limited by the parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 30%. 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 subpar success ratio suggests that the firm could do better across its fund lineup.

 This strategy leans toward smaller, more value-oriented companies than its average peer in the Large Value Morningstar Category. Analyzing additional factors, this fund has constantly tilted toward stocks with higher trading volumes than its Morningstar Category Peers over the past few years. More-liquid assets are easier to buy and sell without adversely moving their prices and tend to provide some ballast during market selloffs. They also are easier to sell to meet redemptions if a host of investors decide to leave the fund in a short period of time. In recent months, the strategy was more exposed to the Liquidity factor compared with its Morningstar Category peers as well. This strategy also has tilted in favor of high-quality stocks, those that have demonstrated low financial leverage and solid return on equity, during these years. High exposure to the quality factor means holding companies that are consistently profitable, growing, and have solid balance sheets. Compared with category peers, the strategy also had more exposure to the Quality factor in the most recent month. Additionally, the managers have consistently taken on more risk, demonstrated by higher volatility exposure than peers. Such exposure tends to pay off when markets are hot and to be costly when they are not. In this month, the strategy also had more exposure to the Volatility factor over 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 energy and consumer cyclical relative to the category average by 16.8 and 12.7 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are financial services and healthcare, underweight the average by 15.6 and 9.9 percentage points of assets, respectively. The portfolio has 57 holdings and invests 25.8% of assets in its top 10 holdings, similar to the category average. And in closing, in terms of portfolio turnover, looking at year-over-year movements, 21% of the fund's holdings have turned over, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

Above Average

Process

Amplify’s team is good but unexceptional, earning the strategy an Average People Pillar rating. There’s a deep bench of five managers listed on the fund. Together, they manage a total of two strategies, with a Silver asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating the potential to deliver positive alpha relative to the category median in aggregate.  

 Note: The People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. The longest-tenured manager of the fund also manages a different product rated by an analyst. Their analyst-assigned People Pillar rating is combined here with the People scores (algorithmic or analyst-assigned) for the fund’s other managers on a tenure-weighted basis.

Average

People

While differentiated from much of the competition, Amplify ETFs' concentrated lineup of largely thematic exchange-traded funds harbors considerable risk. It earns a Below Average Parent Rating.

Amplify targets niches not previously explored by larger ETF firms. This leads to product launches in relatively narrow parts of the market like cannabis, online retail, and battery technology. A recent acquisition of 12 mostly thematic ETFs from ETF Managers Group only enhances this focus. Products like these tend to be extremely concentrated and volatile, inviting significant risks to their investors, not the least of which are ill-timed purchases and sales. Because of these risks, product success is unpredictable and leads to more closures than there are among traditional strategies. Since its 2016 founding, Amplify has merged or liquidated several ETFs that failed to gain traction or produced poor results.

Five subadvisors are responsible for the day-to-day management of Amplify's 29 ETFs. The firm regularly reviews subadvisor activity and performance and risk data but does not have a dedicated risk management team. Overall, its subadvisory relationships seem to emphasize product development and distribution rather than long-term, proven investment merit.

Amplify ETFs does what it sets out to do—offer investors differentiated ETF strategies—and leadership comes with considerable ETF experience. The firm's ETFs are not cheap but neither are they particularly pricey. Many levy category-competitive fees. Few of Amplify's ETFs should be considered core holdings, but they can serve a purpose for investors seeking specific exposures so long as shareholders understand the risks embedded.

Below Average

Parent

Amplify Cash Flow Dividend Leaders ETF

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CHICAGO, April 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Amplify ETFs announces April income distributions for its ETFs. ETF Name Ticker Amount per Share Ex-Date Record Date Payable Date Amplify Cash Flow Dividend Leaders ETF COWS $0.02642 4/26/2024 4/29/2024 4/30/2024 Amplify CWP Enhanced Dividend Income ETF DIVO $0.15316 4/26/2024 4/29/2024 4/30/2024 Amplify Cash Flow High Income ETF HCOW $0.17566 4/26/2024 4/29/2024 4/30/2024 Amplify International Enhanced Dividend Income ETF IDVO $0.15150 4/26/2024 4/29/2024 4/30/2024 Amplify Natural Resources Dividend Income ETF NDIV $0.14025 4/26/2024 4/29/2024 4/30/2024 Amplify Samsung SOFR ETF SOF $0.43152 4/26/2024 4/29/2024 4/30/2024 Amplify High Income ETF YYY $0.12000 4/26/2024 4/29/2024 4/30/2024 About Amplify ETFs Amplify ETFs, sponsored by Amplify Investments, has over $9 billion in assets across its suite of ETFs (as of 3/31/2024).

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CHICAGO, Nov. 28, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Amplify ETFs announces November income distributions for its ETFs.

Amplify ETFs Declares November Income Distributions for its ETFs

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Amplify ETFs Declares October Income Distributions for its ETFs

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