At the beginning of the first quarter of 2020 only the All Cap Value, Large Cap Value, and Large Cap Blend styles earn Attractive-or-better ratings. Our style ratings are based on the normalized aggregation of our fund ratings for every ETF and mutual fund in each style. Our fund ratings are based on aggregations of the ratings of the stocks they hold. See last quarter’s Style Ratings here.

Investors looking for style funds that hold quality stocks should look no further than the All Cap Value and Large Cap Value styles. These styles house a large portion of the highest rated funds. Figures 4 through 7 provide more details. The primary driver behind an Attractive fund rating is good portfolio management, or good stock picking, with low total annual costs.

Attractive-or-better ratings do not always correlate with Attractive-or-better total annual costs. This fact underscores that (1) cheap funds can dupe investors and (2) investors should invest only in funds with good stocks and low fees.

Our Robo-Analyst technology[1] empowers our unique ETF and mutual fund rating methodology, which leverages our rigorous analysis of each fund’s holdings.[2] Only our research utilizes the superior data and earnings adjustments featured by the HBS & MIT Sloan paper,Core Earnings: New Data and Evidence.”

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See Figures 4 through 13 for a detailed breakdown of ratings distributions by investment style. See our ETF & mutual fund screener for rankings, ratings and reports on 6800+ mutual funds and 400+ ETFs. Our fund rating methodology is detailed here.

All of our reports on the best & worst ETFs and mutual funds in every investment style are available here.

Figure 1: Ratings for All Investment Styles

Source: New Constructs, LLC and company filings

To earn an Attractive-or-better Predictive Rating, an ETF or mutual fund must have high-quality holdings and low costs. Only the top 30% of all ETFs and mutual funds earn our Attractive or better rating.

Deutsche DWS CROCI U.S. Fund (DCURX) is the top rated All Cap Value fund. It gets our Very Attractive rating by allocating over 49% of its value to Attractive-or-better-rated stocks.

PACE Small/Medium Co Growth Equity Investments (PQUAX) is the worst rated Small Cap Growth fund. It gets our Very Unattractive rating by allocating over 16% of its value to Unattractive-or-worse-rated stocks. Making matters worse, it charges investors total annual costs of 4.16%.

Figure 2 shows the distribution of our Predictive Ratings for all investment style ETFs and mutual funds.

Figure 2: Distribution of ETFs & Mutual Funds (Assets and Count) by Predictive Rating

Source: New Constructs, LLC and company filings

Figure 3 offers additional details on the quality of the investment style funds. Note that the average total annual cost of Very Unattractive funds is almost five times that of Very Attractive funds.

Figure 3: Predictive Rating Distribution Stats

* Avg TAC = Weighted Average Total Annual Costs

Source: New Constructs, LLC and company filings

This table shows that only the best of the best funds get our Very Attractive Rating: they must hold good stocks AND have low costs. Investors deserve to have the best of both and we are here to give it to them.

Ratings by Investment Style

Figure 4 presents a mapping of Very Attractive funds by investment style. The chart shows the number of Very Attractive funds in each style and the percentage of assets allocated to Very Attractive-rated funds.

Figure 4: Very Attractive ETFs & Mutual Funds by Investment Style

Source: New Constructs, LLC and company filings

Figure 5 presents the data charted in Figure 4.

Figure 5: Very Attractive ETFs & Mutual Funds by Investment Style

Source: New Constructs, LLC and company filings

Figure 6 presents a mapping of Attractive funds by investment style. The chart shows the number of Attractive funds in each style and the percentage of assets allocated to Attractive-rated funds.

Figure 6: Attractive ETFs & Mutual Funds by Investment Style

Source: New Constructs, LLC and company filings

Figure 7 presents the data charted in Figure 6.

Figure 7: Attractive ETFs & Mutual Funds by Investment Style

Source: New Constructs, LLC and company filings

Figure 8 presents a mapping of Neutral funds by investment style. The chart shows the number of Neutral funds in each style and the percentage of assets allocated to Neutral-rated funds.

Figure 8: Neutral ETFs & Mutual Funds by Investment Style

Source: New Constructs, LLC and company filings

Figure 9 presents the data charted in Figure 8.

Figure 9: Neutral ETFs & Mutual Funds by Investment Style

Source: New Constructs, LLC and company filings

Figure 10 presents a mapping of Unattractive funds by investment style. The chart shows the number of Unattractive funds in each style and the percentage of assets allocated to Unattractive-rated funds.

The landscape of style ETFs and mutual funds is littered with Unattractive funds. Investors in Mid Cap Growth have put over 64% of their assets in Unattractive-rated funds.

Figure 10: Unattractive ETFs & Mutual Funds by Investment Style

Source: New Constructs, LLC and company filings

Figure 11 presents the data charted in Figure 10.

Figure 11: Unattractive ETFs & Mutual Funds by Investment Style

Source: New Constructs, LLC and company filings

Figure 12 presents a mapping of Very Unattractive funds by investment style. The chart shows the number of Very Unattractive funds in each style and the percentage of assets allocated to Very Unattractive-rated funds.

Figure 12: Very Unattractive ETFs & Mutual Funds by Investment Style

Source: New Constructs, LLC and company filings

Figure 13 presents the data charted in Figure 12.

Figure 13: Very Unattractive ETFs & Mutual Funds by Investment Style

Source: New Constructs, LLC and company filings

This article originally published on January 21, 2020.

Disclosure: David Trainer, Kyle Guske II and Matt Shuler receive no compensation to write about any specific stock, sector or theme.

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[1] Harvard Business School features the powerful impact of our research automation technology in the case New Constructs: Disrupting Fundamental Analysis with Robo-Analysts.

[2] This paper compares our analytics on a mega cap company to other major providers. The Appendix details exactly how we stack up.

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