iShares S&P Small-Cap 600 Value ETF | IJS

Analyst Report
Morningstar's Take
|02/02/2024

by Zachary Evens
IShares S&P Small-Cap 600 Value ETF IJS takes an aggressive stance but a profitability bias coupled with superior diversification make it a compelling option in the small-value Morningstar Category.

The fund tracks the S&P SmallCap 600 Value Index, which sweeps in stocks from the cheaper half of the S&P SmallCap 600 Index. Low price/book and low price/earnings ratios usually characterize value stocks. Slow earnings growth, poor fundamentals, or dim future prospects may all contribute to depressed valuations. While they may not be the most exciting firms, the low expectations implied in their valuations should prove easier to beat.

Market-cap weighting is an efficient way to allocate the portfolio because it harnesses the market's consensus opinion on the relative value of each stock. Stocks that grow in size take up a larger share of the portfolio, while smaller companies with struggling prices take on a less important role. Market-cap weighting contains turnover but strict size constraints can increase it. The fund can face higher transaction costs than most index peers when a high number of stocks cross into or out of the adjacent S&P MidCap 400 Index, as happened in 2023.

The S&P SmallCap 600 Index operates at the smaller end of the small-cap market, collecting the smallest 600 companies in the S&P Composite 1500 Index. Its average holding’s market cap comes in at less than half the size of the average small-value fund. Small-cap stocks tend to be more volatile than their larger peers, so the fund should thrive during market upswings but may fall faster than its average peer during broad selloffs. That said, the effect may get diluted by allowing only profitable firms into the portfolio.

Past performance bore this out. The fund outperformed the category norm by more than a percentage point over the 10 years through December 2023, but it was also about 6% more volatile. Investors can expect a bumpy ride, but its low fee and focus on profitable companies should soften those bumps and reward long-term investors.
 
Morningstar Medalist Rating™A very small, small-value ETF.
To find out how Morningstar rates a fund click here.
Morningstar Pillars
PessoasAbove Average
ParentAbove Average
ProcessoAbove Average
 
Morningstar Medalist RatingMorningstar assigns the Medalist Rating to funds that are qualitatively and quantitatively assessed through manager research and algorithmic processes. The assessment turns on three key “pillars” – People, Process, and Parent – that yield an estimate of how well a fund will perform before fees but after adjusting for risk.
A fim de prover consistência para todos os relatórios fornecidos por diferentes Asset Managers, os data points calculados apresentados são gerados usando uma metodologia de cálculo proprietária da Morningstar, que pode ser conferida com mais detalhes em(https://www.morningstar.com/research/signature)
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