Is Inspire International ETF (WWJD) a Strong ETF Right Now?

Designed to provide broad exposure to the World ETFs category of the market, the Inspire International ETF (WWJD) is a smart beta exchange traded fund launched on 09/30/2019.

What Are Smart Beta ETFs?

The ETF industry has long been dominated by products based on market cap weighted indexes, a strategy created to reflect the market or a particular market segment.

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

There are some investors, though, who think it's possible to beat the market with great stock selection; this group likely invests in another class of funds known as smart beta, which track non-cap weighted strategies.

Based on specific fundamental characteristics, or a combination of such, these indexes attempt to pick stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance.

Even though this space provides many choices to investors--think one of the simplest methodologies like equal-weighting and more complicated ones like fundamental and volatility/momentum based weighting--not all have been able to deliver first-rate results.

Fund Sponsor & Index

The fund is sponsored by Inspire. It has amassed assets over $367.49 million, making it one of the larger ETFs in the World ETFs. This particular fund seeks to match the performance of the INSPIRE INTERNATIONAL INDEX before fees and expenses.

The Inspire International Index selects foreign equity securities from a global universe of publicly traded equity securities of large capitalization foreign and emerging market companies which have an Inspire Impact Score of zero or higher.

Cost & Other Expenses

For ETF investors, expense ratios are an important factor when considering a fund's return; in the long-term, cheaper funds actually have the ability to outperform their more expensive cousins if all other things remain the same.

Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.66%, making it on par with most peer products in the space.

It's 12-month trailing dividend yield comes in at 2.61%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

While ETFs offer diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk, a deep look into a fund's holdings is a valuable exercise. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

When you look at individual holdings, Kion Group Ag (KGX) accounts for about 0.56% of the fund's total assets, followed by Delta Elec-nvdr (DELTA-R) and Delek Group Ltd (DLEKG).

Its top 10 holdings account for approximately 5.42% of WWJD's total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

The ETF has added roughly 18.3% and is up roughly 13.63% so far this year and in the past one year (as of 08/01/2025), respectively. WWJD has traded between $27.43 and $35.35 during this last 52-week period.

The ETF has a beta of 0.90 and standard deviation of 16.40% for the trailing three-year period. With about 213 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk .

Alternatives

Inspire International ETF is not a suitable option for investors seeking to outperform the World ETFs segment of the market. Instead, there are other ETFs in the space which investors should consider.

Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF (ESGV) tracks FTSE US ALL CAP CHOICE INDEX and the iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF (ESGU) tracks MSCI USA ESG Focus Index. Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF has $10.9 billion in assets, iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF has $14.01 billion. ESGV has an expense ratio of 0.09% and ESGU changes 0.15%.

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

Bottom Line

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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