First Trust Latin America AlphaDEX® ETF's Average People Pillar and Process Pillar ratings result in a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Neutral. The portfolio maintains a sizable cost advantage over competitors, priced within the second-cheapest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy’s management team earns an Average People Pillar rating. The strategy merits an Average Process Pillar rating.  Low liquidity risk exposure is attributed to stocks with a low trading volume, limiting managers' flexibility. And momentum exposure is rooted in holding stocks currently on a winning streak. 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

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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. First Trust Latin America AlphaDEX® Fund earns an 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. Respectable risk-adjusted performance also strengthens the process. 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 32%. 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 targets smaller plays than its peers’ average in the Latin America Stock Morningstar Category. But in terms of style (value/growth) exposure, it is similar. Examining additional factor exposure, 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. This strategy has also had more exposure to high-momentum stocks in recent years. Momentum is based on the premise that market outperformers will continue to outperform, and laggards will continue to lag. This means that managers are overweighting stocks currently on a winning streak. Compared with category peers, the strategy also had more exposure to the Momentum factor in the most recent month. In addition, this strategy has an underweight bias to the volatility factor, meaning investing in stocks that have a lower standard deviation of returns. Such holdings can limit a strategy's downside, but cause it to 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 consumer defensive and consumer cyclical relative to the category average by 5.3 and 4.8 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are energy and financial services, underweight the average by 5.8 and 5.7 percentage points of assets, respectively. The portfolio is positioned across 53 holdings and its assets are more dispersed than peers in the category. In particular, 33.9% of the strategy's assets are concentrated in the top 10 fund holdings, as opposed to the category average's 41.2%. And in closing, 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

First Trust’s team is valuable but does not stand out as one of the industry's best, warranting an Average People Pillar rating. There’s a sizable bench of seven managers listed on the fund. The team is well equipped, with an average of 20 years of portfolio management experience. Together, they manage a total of 107 strategies, with a Bronze asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, demonstrating their potential to deliver positive alpha relative to the category median in aggregate. This group has successfully retained management talent, with no departures in the past five years. 

 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

First Trust meets the industry standard for stewardship, but it could do more to align itself with investors. It earns an Average Parent rating.

This is a team-oriented organization that eschews star managers. While exchange-traded funds represent the bulk of the firm's assets, First Trust bypasses the competitive market for low-cost beta funds, instead opting for complex strategies with higher management fees. However, the firm's focus on ETFs for future product development underpins its commitment to tax efficiency and transparency. Some of its thematic strategies appear trendy, but it stands behind them and rarely liquidates funds. 

The firm is a private partnership, controlled by Jim Bowen, the CEO. Many senior managers are limited partners. This ownership structure helps the firm stay focused on the long term and promotes retention, which has been strong for the investment team. The firm has grown considerably over the past decade and is among the largest providers of actively managed ETFs, as well as unit investment trusts. As it has grown, the firm has expanded its investment team and beefed up its technology infrastructure.

First Trust's focus is on educating advisors and providing them solutions. This may benefit investors indirectly, but First Trust could do more to directly align with investors by cutting fees and limiting trendy strategies.

Parent

First Trust Latin America AlphaDEX Fund

FLN tracks an index of Latin American firms screened based on a proprietary methodology, using various factors and weighted in tiers.

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News for First Trust Latin America AlphaDEX Fund ETF (FLN)