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

The Inspire International ETF (WWJD) was launched on 09/30/2019, and is a smart beta exchange traded fund designed to offer broad exposure to the World ETFs 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.

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.

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.

These indexes attempt to select stocks that have better chances of risk-return performance, based on certain fundamental characteristics or a combination of such characteristics.

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 managed by Inspire. WWJD has been able to amass assets over $423.81 million, making it one of the larger ETFs in the World ETFs. WWJD 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

When considering an ETF's total return, expense ratios are an important factor. And, cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive cousins in the long term if all other factors remain equal.

Annual operating expenses for WWJD are 0.66%, which makes it on par with most peer products in the space.

WWJD's 12-month trailing dividend yield is 2.36%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

Most ETFs are very transparent products, and disclose their holdings on a daily basis. ETFs also offer diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk, though it's still important for investors to research a fund's holdings.

Looking at individual holdings, Samsung Sdi Co accounts for about 0.71% of total assets, followed by Delta Elec-nvdr (DELTA-R) and Hang Seng Bank.

Its top 10 holdings account for approximately 6.21% of WWJD's total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

The ETF has added about 27.71% so far this year and is up about 22.29% in the last one year (as of 12/12/2025). In the past 52-week period, it has traded between $27.43 and $36.38

WWJD has a beta of 0.79 and standard deviation of 14.46% for the trailing three-year period. With about 219 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 $11.92 billion in assets, iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF has $15.47 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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