Since the March 9, 2009 market bottom, the S&P 500 has gained a tidy 181%. Some major mid- and small-cap exchange traded funds have more than tripled.
Forgive the baseball jargon, but hitting doubles and triples is certainly effective, but not as effective as collecting six bases. Or in the case of the Guggenheim S&P 500 Pure Value ETF (NYSEArca: RPV), rising 515% since March 10, 2009, according to Investor’s Business Daily.
RPV’s five-year run is enough to make it the best-performing ETF over that time and by a wide margin over the second-place ProShares Short VIX Short-Term Futures (NYSEArca: SVXY). The $593.5 million, which recently celebrated its eighth anniversary, tracks the performance of the S&P 500 Pure Value Index (SPXPV) and is home to almost 120 stocks. [Some of 2012’s Best ETFs Did it Again in 2013]
RPV’s constituents are culled from the S&P 500 after S&P Dow Jones Indices weighs those stocks by value scores. Although RPV has “pure value” in its name, the ETF is currently not heavy on sectors typically think of as being value propositions.
For example, utilities and consumer staples combine for just 23.3% of the index’s weight, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. That could be the result of staples stocks previously reaching valuations that were a tad rich even by the sector’s historical standards and income investors bidding up utilities names to valuations that became frothier than some higher beta sectors. [Low Expectations for Utilities ETFs]