ValueShares, the exchange traded funds unit of registered investment advisory firm Alpha Architect, made its ETF debut today with the launch of the ValueShares U.S. Quantitative Value ETF (BATS: QVAL).
The actively managed QVAL, which charges 0.79% per year, is managed by Dr. Wesley Gray, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran with a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago where studied under Nobel Prize winner, Eugene Fama. QVAL pursues its investment objective by investing primarily in U.S. equity securities the advisor believes to be the cheapest, highest-quality value stocks in the market, according to a statement.
QVAL is currently home to 40 stocks, including well-known names such as Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL), Coach (NYSE: COH), Cisco Systems (NasdaqGS: CSCO) and Dow component AT&T (NYSE: T).
QVAL joins a small number of concentrated, active, and value-based ETFs currently in the marketplace. QVAL may invest in securities of companies in any industry and with any market capitalization, according to the statement.
“We could have gone the ‘Smart Beta’ route and built a closet-index strategy that holds 100, 200, or more stocks. However, investors are paying us to take active bets; they are not paying us to deliver what is effectively a Vanguard S&P 500 ETF with a small tilt towards some factor,” said Gray in the statement.