First Trust Small Cap Val 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 portfolio maintains a sizable cost advantage over competitors, priced within the lowest 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 a significant underweight position in momentum exposure and an overweight in volatility exposure compared with category peers. Momentum is the premise that stocks that have recently outperformed will continue to do so. With low momentum exposure, the portfolio is holding stocks that managers believe to be undervalued. 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

PHINIA Inc

Comstock Resources

Avista

Perdoceo Education

Bread Financial Holdings Inc

Northwest Natural Gas

First Financial Bancorp

Universal Corp

Innoviva

United States Cellular

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 Small Cap Value AlphaDEX® Fd earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. 

The most important driver of 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 supports 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 29%. 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, more undervalued companies compared with its average peer in the Small Value Morningstar Category. Analyzing additional factors, this strategy has had relatively low exposure to momentum stocks compared with Morningstar Category peers continually in the last few years. Momentum investors tend to expect stocks that have done well recently to continue to do so in the short term. Momentum approaches can entail higher turnover and trading costs since the top stocks can often change. In the latest month, the strategy was also less exposed to the Momentum factor compared with Morningstar Category peers. 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. This orientation tends to pay off most prominently when markets are hot. Compared with category peers, the strategy also had more exposure to the Volatility factor in the most recent month. In addition, this strategy's holdings have included more companies with high dividend or buyback yields than peers over these years. High-yield stocks tend to be connected to more mature companies earning enough cash to return some to shareholders. At times, however, extreme market pressure can force them to cut their dividends, which hurts stock performance. In this month, the strategy also had more exposure to the Yield 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 consumer defensive and financial services relative to the category average by 5.2 and 3.7 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are technology and industrials, underweight the average by 6.0 and 3.2 percentage points of assets, respectively. The portfolio is positioned across 262 holdings and is diversified among those holdings. In its most recent portfolio, 8.0% of the fund’s assets were concentrated in the top 10 fund holdings, compared to the category average's 28.9%. And in closing, in terms of portfolio turnover, on a year-over-year basis, 110% of the fund's holdings have changed, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

Above Average

Process

First Trust’s team is good but unexceptional, earning the strategy an Average People Pillar rating. There’s a deep 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, demonstrating their potential to deliver positive alpha relative to the category median in aggregate. This group has been working together for a while and has been successful in retaining talent compared to peers, with no departures in the last 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 Small Cap Value AlphaDEX Fund

FYT tracks an index of securities pulled from the NASDAQ US 700 Small Cap Index that are rescreened and weighted based on a tiered process.

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News for First Trust Small Cap Value AlphaDEX Fund ETF (FYT)