The American Century Focused Large Cap Value ETF, which debuted in March 2020, is part of the first wave of active, non-transparent ETFs to reach the market. This means the fund’s stock pickers don’t have to disclose their holdings every day, unlike most ETFs. The fund’s objective is to invest in large cap companies that are selling at a discount to their fair value. For years, many active managers resisted launching ETFs because of fears that the daily portfolio transparency would give away their trade secrets. The Securities and Exchange Commission finally approved non-transparent funds in 2019. Whether active non-transparent will pay off remains to be seen. While other active money managers can close their funds to new investors if they believe their trade is getting too crowded, ETF managers can’t. An active ETF must continue to accept new money, and therefore must be mindful of the capacity constraints of the underlying market. In practice, this means many active equity ETFs, transparent or not, may lean heavily on large cap U.S. equities. The biggest U.S. stocks are highly liquid, but they’ve also proven a challenging market for active managers and very few consistently beat their benchmarks. Moreover, some active non-transparent ETFs target the same investment strategies pursued by factor funds. Money managers have long recognized that certain factors, when deployed during certain market conditions, have consistently rewarded investors. So-called value stocks — defined as companies with low share prices relative to their fundamentals — have historically outperformed the market over the long-term. There are plenty of value funds on the market, including index-tracking funds, factor ETFs, and active funds like FLV. FLV’s fees are competitive for active management, though significantly higher than low-cost value index funds. With a limited real-world performance history, it remains to be seen whether FLV will beat its indexed rivals over the long haul. Investors should compare price, liquidity, and performance to other active and passive value ETFs.