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Is Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Financials ETF (RSPF) a Strong ETF Right Now?

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A smart beta exchange traded fund, the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Financials ETF (RSPF - Free Report) debuted on 11/01/2006, and offers broad exposure to the Financials ETFs category of the market.

What Are Smart Beta ETFs?

For a long time now, the ETF industry has been flooded with products based on market capitalization weighted indexes, which are designed to represent the broader market or a particular market segment.

A good option for investors who believe in market efficiency, market cap weighted indexes offer a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns.

However, some investors believe in the possibility of beating the market through exceptional stock selection, and choose a different type of fund that tracks non-cap weighted strategies: smart beta.

Non-cap weighted indexes try to choose stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance, which is based on specific fundamental characteristics, or a mix of other such characteristics.

This area offers many different investment choices, such as simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies; however, not all of these strategies can deliver superior results.

Fund Sponsor & Index

RSPF is managed by Invesco, and this fund has amassed over $321.75 million, which makes it one of the average sized ETFs in the Financials ETFs. Before fees and expenses, RSPF seeks to match the performance of the S&P 500 EQUAL WEIGHT FINANCIALS INDEX .

The S&P 500 Equal Weight Financials Index equally weights stocks in the financial sector of the S&P 500 Index.

Cost & Other Expenses

Investors should also pay attention to an ETF's expense ratio. Lower cost products will produce better results than those with a higher cost, assuming all other metrics remain the same.

With on par with most peer products in the space, this ETF has annual operating expenses of 0.40%.

It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 1.20%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

ETFs offer diversified exposure and thus minimize single stock risk, but it is still important to delve into a fund's holdings before investing. Most ETFs are very transparent products and many disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

RSPF's heaviest allocation is in the Financials sector, which is about 100% of the portfolio.

Looking at individual holdings, Wells Fargo & Co (WFC - Free Report) accounts for about 1.63% of total assets, followed by Raymond James Financial Inc (RJF - Free Report) and Morgan Stanley (MS - Free Report) .

The top 10 holdings account for about 15.56% of total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

The ETF return is roughly 32.02% and is up about 39.15% so far this year and in the past one year (as of 12/04/2024), respectively. RSPF has traded between $55.45 and $78.05 during this last 52-week period.

The fund has a beta of 1.06 and standard deviation of 14.42% for the trailing three-year period. With about 74 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk.

Alternatives

Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Financials ETF is a reasonable option for investors seeking to outperform the Financials ETFs segment of the market. However, there are other ETFs in the space which investors could consider.

Vanguard Financials ETF (VFH - Free Report) tracks MSCI US Investable Market Financials 25/50 Index and the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF - Free Report) tracks Financial Select Sector Index. Vanguard Financials ETF has $11.45 billion in assets, Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF has $51.97 billion. VFH has an expense ratio of 0.10% and XLF charges 0.09%.

Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Financials ETFs.

Bottom Line

To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center.

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