How Dimensional Became an Active ETF Giant

Just three years ago, Dimensional Fund Advisors made its first foray into the crowded ETF field. Today, the firm is the eighth-largest ETF issuer, with over $112 billion in assets under management. How did Dimensional succeed where others had failed?  

In this episode of Exchange Traded Fridays, Rob Harvey, co-head of product specialists and vice president at Dimensional Fund Advisors, sits down with etf.com senior analyst Sumit Roy and etf.com wealth management editor Jeff Benjamin to discuss Dimensional’s success. 

At the time of DFA’s entry into the exchange-traded fund space, there was no guarantee of success. Even though the DFA name was big in the mutual fund space, plenty of mutual fund companies had attempted to break into the ETF industry with little to show for it. 

Harvey also gets into how his firm’s “systematic active” strategies work and what new ETFs DFA might launch in the future.