A smart beta exchange traded fund, the Invesco S&P 500 Pure Growth ETF (RPG) debuted on 03/01/2006, and offers broad exposure to the Style Box - Large Cap Growth 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.
A good option for investors who believe in market efficiency, market cap weighted indexes offer a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns.
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.
Based on specific fundamental characteristics, or a combination of such, these indexes attempt to pick stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance.
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
Because the fund has amassed over $1.86 billion, this makes it one of the larger ETFs in the Style Box - Large Cap Growth. RPG is managed by Invesco. Before fees and expenses, RPG seeks to match the performance of the S&P 500 Pure Growth Index.
The S&P 500 Pure Growth Index measures the performance of securities that exhibit strong growth characteristics in the S&P 500 Index.
Cost & Other Expenses
Expense ratios are an important factor in the return of an ETF and in the long-term, cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive cousins, other things remaining the same.
Annual operating expenses for RPG are 0.35%, which makes it on par with most peer products in the space.
The fund has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 0.19%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
It is important to delve into an ETF's holdings before investing despite the many upsides to these kinds of funds like diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.
For RPG, it has heaviest allocation in the Information Technology sector --about 39.1% of the portfolio --while Industrials and Consumer Discretionary round out the top three.
When you look at individual holdings, Sandisk Corp/de (SNDK) accounts for about 4.3% of the fund's total assets, followed by Comfort Systems Usa Inc (FIX) and Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRK/B).
The top 10 holdings account for about 26.44% of total assets under management.
Performance and Risk
So far this year, RPG has added roughly 15.45%, and is up roughly 47.3% in the last one year (as of 04/23/2026). During this past 52-week period, the fund has traded between $38.64 and $53.88.
The ETF has a beta of 1.17 and standard deviation of 20.87% for the trailing three-year period, making it a medium risk choice in the space. With about 62 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk .
Alternatives
Invesco S&P 500 Pure Growth ETF is an excellent option for investors seeking to outperform the Style Box - Large Cap Growth segment of the market. There are other ETFs in the space which investors could consider as well.
Vanguard Growth Index Fund ETF Shares (VUG) tracks CRSP U.S. Large Cap Growth Index and the Invesco QQQ (QQQ) tracks NASDAQ-100 Index. Vanguard Growth Index Fund ETF Shares has $211.32 billion in assets, Invesco QQQ has $429.52 billion. VUG has an expense ratio of 0.03% and QQQ changes 0.18%.
Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Style Box - Large Cap Growth
Bottom Line
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Invesco S&P 500 Pure Growth ETF (RPG): ETF Research Reports
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).