DFA Now the Biggest Active ETF Asset Manager

DFA has long been a favorite asset manager for financial advisors, offering disciplined but flexible long-term strategies based on the ideas that small companies outperform large, value companies outperform growth and profitable companies outperform those less profitable.

"Having those strategies in an ETF wrapper has made 'the DFA way' available to legions of advisors who might not have had access in the old model," said Nadig, noting that the firm's ETFs have attracted nearly $1 billion in asset flows already this year.

Its four fixed income ETFs, which have collected almost $1 billion since their debut in mid-November 2021 — an achievement DFA executives celebrated in a virtual ringing of the Jan. 19 opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

The firm has plans to launch 10 more ETFs — two U.S., four international, three emerging market ETFs and one U.S. real estate ETF later this year, according to a very recent filing with the SEC. Three value ETFs — for the U.S., developed non-U.S. market and emerging markets — are part of that mix, with the first two being small-cap value, which bested the S&P 500's 27% gain in 2021.

Fees for the proposed ETFs range from 0.19% for the U.S. Real Estate ETF to 0.49% for the International Small Cap Value ETF.