Strive Brings ‘Anti-Woke’ Thesis to Large Caps

Strive Asset Management rolled out its second fund Thursday, the Strive 500 ETF (STRV), that tracks an index of the 500 largest companies in the U.S., and puts it on similar footing as the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) and similar funds. 

Strive, which includes PayPal Co-founder Peter Thiel as one of its backers, launched its first ETF, the Strive U.S. Energy ETF (DRLL), in August, and the fund has already accumulated $335.2 million in assets, a significant influx for a fund from a new and independent issuer. Although the fund tracks a fairly vanilla index of U.S. energy companies, it’s the ethos behind it that is likely driving investor dollars.  

DRLL has been positioned as an “anti-woke” fund that prioritizes profits over political agendas, such as those represented by ESG goals. Strive’s tagline on its website is “Invest in Excellence.” It seeks to accomplish its goal through voting proxy shares and engagement with the companies in STRV’s portfolio.  

STRV comes with an expense ratio of 0.0545% and lists on the NSYE Arca. 

The underlying index, the Solactive GBS United States 500 Index, is even more vanilla than DRLL’s benchmark, which implements a modified float-adjusted market capitalization weighting strategy, which is determined by the amount of shares available for trading. The index for STRV selects and weights its holdings purely by float-adjusted market capitalization.  

DRLL’s expense ratio two is 2 basis points more than that of the $2.21 billion iShares U.S. Energy ETF (IYE), a rather expensive plain vanilla energy fund that, at 0.39%, costs significantly more than the 8 to 10 basis points charged by other cap-weighted competitors. However, STRV costs just a few basis points more than the 0.03% expense ratio charged by the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) and the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) and less than the 0.09% charged by SPY.  

Contact Heather Bell at [email protected]