A Quant's Guide to Smart-Beta ETFs
Find ETFs that actually justify their fees
VerifiedBeta is an independent ETF research project. We apply industry-standard factor regressions to US and Canadian ETFs with at least 24 monthly returns, scoring each on risk-adjusted outperformance, factor purity, and dividend-based relative valuation.
Updated April 2026 with factor data through February 2026 for US funds and February 2026 for Canadian funds. Funds without enough history are tracked separately rather than mixed into the leaders tables.
VerifiedBeta is a public, non-commercial ETF research project focused on ETF due diligence for evidence-based investors. The site is built to show where factor exposure, implementation quality, valuation, and risk-adjusted performance line up in live US and Canadian funds, not just in fund labels or marketing copy. Learn more about the project and who runs it.
Start with the US or Canadian leaders pages if you want the monthly shortlist. Use the full universe pages when you need to inspect near-miss funds, compare expenses and valuation, or understand why a fund did not qualify. If a metric or ranking feels unfamiliar, the methodology page explains the relative Sharpe variants, factor-score logic, and valuation lens behind the tables.
What we measure
A fund's backtested relative Sharpe, expressed as a percentage of the 95th-percentile passing fund and capped at 100. That preserves separation among strong funds without letting a few outliers dominate the leaders tables.
Factor-strength scores show which statistically meaningful exposures are actually driving the result: market beta, size, value, profitability, investment, momentum, or quality where applicable.
Relative valuation is based on split-adjusted recurring distributions versus the fund's own history. A value of 100 means the current recurring yield sits at its historical median; values above 100 indicate the fund is rich relative to its own history, while values below 100 indicate it is inexpensive.
Research Archive
Evergreen ETF research, case studies, and methodology deep dives.
Why valuation and Sharpe ratio belong together when you screen ETFs, and how dividend-based relative valuation complements factor-driven expected return.
A comparison of IJS versus the DFA small-value implementation, with a comparison table and factor-contribution waterfalls.
A SCHD case study with a regression summary table and factor-decomposition charts.
A factor and valuation look at WisdomTree's high-yield emerging-markets ETF.
A treemap-driven look at how much beta-near-one ETF capital still fails to beat the market on a risk-adjusted basis.
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