Dimensional Ultrashort Fixed Income ETF’s management team is rated Average, but a solid investment process still helps this strategy retain its Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the cheapest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy's sensible investment philosophy merits an Above Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained an overweight in corporate bonds and A rated bonds compared with category peers. The strategy’s management team earns an Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm a High 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

Morningstar's style-agnostic investment process evaluation looks for strategies that should be able to outperform their Morningstar Category index on a risk-adjusted basis over time. Dimensional Ultrashort Fixed Income ETF earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating.    The main contributor to the rating is the parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 71%. 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 firm's five-year retention rate of 85% also contributes to the process. Lastly, the process is limited by being an actively managed strategy. Historical data, like Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, finds that actively managed funds have generally underperformed their passive counterparts, especially over longer time horizons.

 Compared with other funds in the Ultrashort Bond Morningstar Category, this fund has been consistently sensitive to interest-rate changes over the past few years. Opening the analysis to additional factors, the portfolio has displayed biases over time, whether towards or away from certain fixed-income instruments. Compared with the average strategy in the category, the managers have been an overweight corporate bonds in recent years. In the latest month, the strategy has relatively overweighted corporate debt compared with its peers as well. Additionally, there's been a notable overallocation to A rated bonds over the past few years. Compared with category peers, the strategy had more exposure to A rated bonds in the most recent month. Finally, during the past few years, the fund leaned meaningfully away from debt with 10- to 15-year maturities. In recent months, the strategy also had less exposure to debt with 10- to 15-year maturities compared to its peers.

  The portfolio's average surveyed credit quality is on par with peers, with both the fund and the average being rated A.

Above Average

Process

Dimensional Ultrashort Fixed Income ETF earns an Average People Pillar rating. The team is backed by David A. Plecha, the longest-tenured manager on the strategy, who provides over 25 years of listed portfolio management experience. The average Morningstar Rating of the strategies they currently manage is 2.8 stars, demonstrating underwhelming risk-adjusted performance. Although the team is small, it is a solid supporting cast. Together, the three listed managers boast more than an average of 20 years of listed portfolio management experience. As a team, they manage six investment vehicles together, with a Bronze asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, demonstrating their potential to deliver positive alpha 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

Dimensional’s mutual fund business has faced some tough challenges over the past few years. Despite large and persistent outflows, the firm has remained steadfast in its philosophy and responded in a way that benefits clients while improving its competitiveness. Dimensional maintains its High Parent Pillar rating.

More than $80 billion left Dimensional’s mutual funds between 2020 and 2022, but its response to the turmoil has been admirable. The firm started reducing fees in early 2020, and it continued the effort with three additional rounds of cuts.

Dimensional’s endeavor into exchange-traded funds was the biggest step it took to shore up its business. The firm converted seven tax-managed mutual funds to ETFs between mid-2021 and mid-2022. Along the way, it launched an additional two dozen that largely follow the same strategies underpinning the existing mutual funds. The firm also reinvested in its separate accounts platform by bolstering the technology used to manage these portfolios. The effort was aimed at improving operational efficiencies.

These measures appear to be paying off. The firm’s new ETFs have proved popular among its clients. In 2022, they brought in enough new money to nearly offset the outflows from its mutual funds. The separate account platform’s operational improvements, along with the new ETF lineup’s tax efficiency, should benefit clients and strengthen the firm’s prospects.

High

Parent

Dimensional Ultrashort Fixed Income Etf

DUSB is actively managed, investing in a broad portfolio of US investment-grade securities. The fund targets a dollar weighted average portfolio maturity of less than one year.

Dimensional US Core Equity 1 ETF

Dimensional World Equity ETF

Dimensional Fund Advisors listed the Ultrashort Fixed Income ETF (NYSE Arca: DUSB) and World Equity ETF (NYSE Arca: DFAW). The actively managed ETFs begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange today.

News for Dimensional Ultrashort Fixed Income Etf ETF (DUSB)