Goldman Sachs MarketBeta US Equity 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 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 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

Microsoft

Apple

NVIDIA

Amazon

Alphabet

Eli Lilly

Broadcom

JPMorgan Chase & Co

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. Goldman Sachs MarketBeta US Equity ETF earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. The predominant 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. Low costs across its parent firm's funds, whose fees, on average, rank in the middle quintile of their respective category, also influence the rating. The pattern of low costs at the firm suggests that it is focused on delivering strong results for investors. Lastly, the process is limited by the small size of its portfolio management team of one.

The investment strategy as stated in the fund's prospectus is:  The investment seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Solactive GBS United States Large & Mid Cap Index.  The fund invests at least 80% of its assets in securities included in its underlying index, and in depositary receipts representing securities included in its underlying index and in underlying stocks in respect of depositary receipts included in its underlying index. The index consists of equity securities of large and mid-capitalization equity issuers covering approximately the largest 85% of the free-float market capitalization in the United States. 

 The portfolio is overweight in technology by 3.6 percentage points in terms of assets compared with the category average, and its communication services allocation is similar to the category. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are industrials and financial services; however, the allocations are similar to the category. The portfolio is composed of 485 holdings and is less top-heavy than peers. Specifically, 31.6% of the strategy's assets are concentrated within the top 10 fund holdings, compared to the category average's 48.8%. And finally, in terms of portfolio turnover, on a year-over-year basis, 3% of the fund's holdings have turned over, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

Above Average

Process

Goldman Sachs’s team is valuable but does not stand out as one of the industry's best, warranting an Average People Pillar rating. The fund takes a solo manager approach, with Raj Garigipati as the only listed manager at the helm, who brings eight years of portfolio management experience to the table. They manage a total of 20 strategies, with a Bronze asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating the potential to deliver positive alpha relative to the category median in aggregate. With only one manager listed on the strategy, the passive strategy is vulnerable to key-person risk. 

 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

Goldman Sachs Asset Management heads into an uncertain direction on multiple fronts, underpinning its Average Parent rating.
GSAM has long struggled with personnel turnover, with a steady degree of analyst departures and additions coinciding with leadership reshufflings over the past few years that includes the September 2022 departure of equity head Katie Koch. Meanwhile, parent company Goldman Sachs elected to merge its asset management and wealth management units in October 2022, reversing a decision to split them in 2020, and assigned Marc Nachmann to lead the unit. Although he is a longtime Goldman veteran, most of his prior experience has been with the firm’s investment bank. Potentially complicating his remit is the firm’s December 2021 acquisition of NN IP, whose traditional and sustainable-investing branches could add capabilities but will take time to integrate. Bolstering the firm’s sustainability credentials could be especially pressing given the SEC’s November 2022 fining of GSAM for past failings in its ESG-related operations. 
GSAM has some strengths worth highlighting. Portfolio-manager ownership statistics across the firm’s U.S. lineup have improved dramatically since the firm instituted a deferred compensation program of fund shares in early 2020, and GSAM has compelling capabilities within its quantitative equity franchise.

Parent

Goldman Sachs MarketBeta US Equity ETF

GSUS tracks an index of US equities, selected and weighted by market capitalization.

GSUS tracks an index of US equities selected and weighted by market capitalization.

The Goldman Sachs MarketBeta US Equity ETF is a tech-heavy, large-cap, passive fund with a 30% allocation to tech. GSUS aims to deliver returns similar to its benchmark by using smart beta strategies to weight its holdings differently. The ETF provides broad exposure to U.S. large and mid-cap equities, offering diversity but sacrificing dividend yields from underlying assets.

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