The Inspire International ETF (WWJD) was launched on 09/30/2019, and is a smart beta exchange traded fund designed to offer broad exposure to the World ETFs category of the market.
What Are Smart Beta ETFs?
The ETF industry has long been dominated by products based on market cap weighted indexes, a strategy created to reflect the market or a particular market segment.
Market cap weighted indexes offer a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns, and are a good option for investors who believe in market efficiency.
If you're the kind of investor who would rather try and beat the market through good stock selection, then smart beta funds are your best choice; this fund class is known for tracking non-cap weighted strategies.
These indexes attempt to select stocks that have better chances of risk-return performance, based on certain fundamental characteristics or a combination of such characteristics.
Even though this space provides many choices to investors--think one of the simplest methodologies like equal-weighting and more complicated ones like fundamental and volatility/momentum based weighting--not all have been able to deliver first-rate results.
Fund Sponsor & Index
The fund is managed by Inspire. WWJD has been able to amass assets over $582.05 million, making it one of the larger ETFs in the World ETFs. WWJD, before fees and expenses, seeks to match the performance of the INSPIRE INTERNATIONAL INDEX .
The Inspire International Index selects foreign equity securities from a global universe of publicly traded equity securities of large capitalization foreign and emerging market companies which have an Inspire Impact Score of zero or higher.
Cost & Other Expenses
When considering an ETF's total return, expense ratios are an important factor. And, cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive cousins in the long term if all other factors remain equal.
Operating expenses on an annual basis are 0.61% for this ETF, which makes it on par with most peer products in the space.
WWJD's 12-month trailing dividend yield is 2.39%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure that minimizes single stock risk, investors should also look at the actual holdings inside the fund. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.
Looking at individual holdings, Kion Group Ag (KGX) accounts for about 0.54% of total assets, followed by Genmab A/s (GMAB) and Continental Ag (CON).
Its top 10 holdings account for approximately 5.28% of WWJD's total assets under management.
Performance and Risk
Year-to-date, the Inspire International ETF return is roughly 14.61% so far, and is up roughly 19.1% over the last 12 months (as of 08/25/2026). WWJD has traded between $34.53 $41.31 in this past 52-week period.
WWJD has a beta of 0.76 and standard deviation of 14.71% for the trailing three-year period. With about 214 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk .
Alternatives
Inspire International ETF is not a suitable option for investors seeking to outperform the World ETFs segment of the market. Instead, there are other ETFs in the space which investors should consider.
Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF Shares (ESGV) tracks FTSE US ALL CAP CHOICE INDEX and the iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF (ESGU) tracks MSCI USA ESG Focus Index. Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF Shares has $13.51 billion in assets, iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF has $18.1 billion. ESGV has an expense ratio of 0.09% and ESGU changes 0.15%.
Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the World ETFs
Bottom Line
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Inspire International ETF (WWJD): ETF Research Reports
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).