Is State Street SPDR MSCI USA StrategicFactors ETF (QUS) a Strong ETF Right Now?

Making its debut on 04/15/2015, smart beta exchange traded fund State Street SPDR MSCI USA StrategicFactors ETF (QUS) provides investors broad exposure to the Style Box - Large Cap Blend category of the market.

What Are Smart Beta ETFs?

The ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on market capitalization weighted indexes that are designed to represent the market or a particular segment of the market.

Because market cap weighted indexes provide a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns, they work well for investors who believe in market efficiency.

If you're the kind of investor who would rather try and beat the market through good stock selection, then smart beta funds are your best choice; this fund class is known for tracking 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.

While this space offers a number of choices to investors, including simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies, not all these strategies have been able to deliver superior results.

Fund Sponsor & Index

The fund is sponsored by State Street Investment Management. It has amassed assets over $1.5 billion, making it one of the larger ETFs in the Style Box - Large Cap Blend. This particular fund seeks to match the performance of the MSCI USA Factor Mix A-Series Index before fees and expenses.

The MSCI USA Factor Mix A-Series Capped Index seeks to measure the equity market performance of large and mid-cap companies across the U.S. equity market.

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.

Operating expenses on an annual basis are 0.15% for this ETF, which makes it one of the cheaper products in the space.

The fund has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 1.37%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure that minimizes single stock risk, investors should also look at the actual holdings inside the fund. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

This ETF has heaviest allocation in the Information Technology sector - about 26.5% of the portfolio. Healthcare and Financials round out the top three.

Taking into account individual holdings, Apple Inc (AAPL) accounts for about 3.25% of the fund's total assets, followed by Microsoft Corp (MSFT) and Nvidia Corp (NVDA).

Its top 10 holdings account for approximately 22.57% of QUS's total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

So far this year, QUS has added roughly 10.86%, and is up roughly 9.05% in the last one year (as of 11/18/2025). During this past 52-week period, the fund has traded between $140.84 and $174.07.

QUS has a beta of 0.88 and standard deviation of 12.46% for the trailing three-year period, which makes the fund a medium risk choice in the space. With about 547 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk .

Alternatives

State Street SPDR MSCI USA StrategicFactors ETF is a reasonable option for investors seeking to outperform the Style Box - Large Cap Blend segment of the market. However, there are other ETFs in the space which investors could consider.

iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) tracks S&P 500 Index and the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) tracks S&P 500 Index. iShares Core S&P 500 ETF has $704.27 billion in assets, Vanguard S&P 500 ETF has $779.33 billion. IVV has an expense ratio of 0.03% and VOO changes 0.03%.

Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Style Box - Large Cap Blend

Bottom Line

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report

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

Zacks Investment Research