First Trust Cnsmr Staples AlphaDEX® ETF’s management team is rated Average, but a solid investment process still helps this strategy retain its Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze. The strategy charges fees in line with its similarly distributed peers, priced within the middle quintile.  

 The strategy's effective investment philosophy supports an Above Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained an overweight in liquidity exposure and volatility exposure compared with category peers. High liquidity exposure is attributed to stocks with a high trading volume, lending managers more flexibility. And high volatility exposure is rooted in stocks that have a higher standard deviation of returns. 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

Bunge

Archer-Daniels-Midland Company

CoreSite Realty

McKesson

Ingredion

Freshpet

Darling Ingredients

Celsius Holdings

Conagra Brands

Kraft Heinz

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. First Trust Consumer Staples AlphaDEX®Fd earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. 

The main contributor to the rating is the fund's impressive long-term risk-adjusted performance. This can be seen in its five-year alpha calculated relative to the category average, which suggests that the managers have shown skill in their allocation of risk. This fund tracks an index, which also increases its process rating. Historical data, like Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, shows that passively managed funds have generally outperformed their active counterparts, especially over longer time horizons. Lastly, the process is limited by the parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 29%. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and beat 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 tends to hold smaller, deeper value companies than its average peer in the Consumer Defensive Morningstar Category. Examining additional factor exposure, this fund has constantly tilted toward stocks with higher trading volumes than its Morningstar Category Peers over the past few years. More-liquid assets contribute to more-flexible exit strategies without price changes and tend to be a ballast during market selloffs. For example, if the portfolio faces successive redemptions in a short period of time, it will be less likely to suffer from a significant loss. In recent months, the strategy was more exposed to the Liquidity factor compared with its Morningstar Category peers as well. This strategy has also exhibited a tilt toward high-volatility stocks over these years, meaning it has invested in companies that have a higher historical standard deviation of returns. Such stocks tend to rise faster and fall harder than the broad market. High-volatility exposure contributes to stronger performance during bull markets, but often at the cost of losing more during downturns. Compared with category peers, the strategy also had more exposure to the Volatility factor in the most recent month. This strategy also has tilted toward low-quality stocks, companies with higher financial leverage and lower profitability over these years. Lacking this ballast, the fund's prospects could rest on its ability to beat peers during economic booms. In recent months, the strategy also had less Quality 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 healthcare and consumer cyclical relative to the category average by 9.3 and 5.0 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are consumer defensive and industrials, with consumer defensive underweighting the average portfolio by 15.9 percentage points of assets and industrials similar to the average. The portfolio is composed of 41 holdings and is less top-heavy than peers. Specifically, 40.2% of the fund’s assets are concentrated within the top 10 fund holdings, compared to the category average's 53.8%. And finally, in terms of portfolio turnover, on a year-over-year basis, 63% of the fund's holdings have turned over, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

Above Average

Process

First Trust’s equity  team is comparable to peers, resulting in 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 22 years of portfolio management experience. Together, they manage a total of 108 strategies, with a Bronze asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating the 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.

Average

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 Consumer Staples AlphaDEX Fund

FXG tracks an index of large- and mid-cap US consumer staples stocks. The underlying index uses multi-factor selection and tiered equal-weighting.

Designed to provide broad exposure to the Consumer Staples ETFs category of the market, the First Trust Consumer Staples AlphaDEX ETF (FXG) is a smart beta exchange traded fund launched on 05/08/2007.

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News for First Trust Consumer Staples AlphaDEX Fund ETF (FXG)