Looking At Performance
But let’s reorder the list based on that other shorthand—past performance:
| Fund Name | Symbol | AUM | 1-Year Total Return |
| PowerShares QQQ | QQQ | $46,271,767,500 | 31.64% |
| PowerShares S&P 500 High Beta | SPHB | $326,556,000 | 30.44% |
| Direxion NASDAQ-100 Equal Weighted | QQQE | $26,953,014 | 27.43% |
| First Trust NASDAQ-100 Equal Weighted | QQEW | $444,983,500 | 27.12% |
| ProShares Large Cap Core Plus | CSM | $370,348,000 | 26.05% |
| RBS NASDAQ-100 Trendpilot ETN | TNDQ | $275,617,686 | 25.68% |
| AdvisorShares Madrona Forward Domestic | FWDD | $29,351,000 | 24.79% |
| Forensic Accounting | FLAG | $14,472,000 | 23.42% |
| Barclays ETN+ Shiller CAPE ETN | CAPE | $21,171,979 | 23.36% |
In this case, I have a harder time piling on the praise. Most of these funds are highly skewed takes on what it means to be a large-cap index. Four are based on the Nasdaq 100, an unusual index that not only fishes from a narrow pool (just Nasdaq-listed stocks) but has odd weighting and rebalance mechanisms.
The list is rounded out by very specific quasi-active approaches to picking outperforming large-cap stocks, whether through looking at fundamentals or actually going long and short (in the case of the ProShares Large Cap Core Plus ETF (CSM | B-88)).
Again, there’s nothing inherently terrible here, but these are all very specific and narrow approaches, and I think it’s unlikely anyone stumbles into them by accident. If you did, well, you’re part of the “not reading the prospectus” problem. Obviously, there’s real money at work in some of these funds, and for the last year at least, it’s been the smarter money than the core large-cap money.
