The iShares Core S&P U.S. Growth ETF (IUSG) made its debut on 07/24/2000, and is a smart beta exchange traded fund that provides broad exposure to the Style Box - All Cap Growth category of the market.
What Are Smart Beta ETFs?
The ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on market capitalization weighted indexes that are designed to represent the market or a particular segment of the market.
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.
There are some investors, though, who think it's possible to beat the market with great stock selection; this group likely invests in another class of funds known as smart beta, which track non-cap weighted strategies.
This kind of index follows this same mindset, as it attempts to pick stocks that have better chances of risk-return performance; non-cap weighted strategies base selection on certain fundamental characteristics, or a mix of such characteristics.
While this space offers a number of choices to investors, including simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies, not all these strategies have been able to deliver superior results.
Fund Sponsor & Index
The fund is sponsored by Blackrock. It has amassed assets over $31.59 billion, making it the largest ETF in the Style Box - All Cap Growth. This particular fund, before fees and expenses, seeks to match the performance of the S&P 900 Growth Index.
The S&P 900 Growth Index measures the performance of the large and mid-capitalization growth sector of the U.S. equity market.
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.
Operating expenses on an annual basis are 0.04% for this ETF, which makes it one of the least expensive products in the space.
It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 0.50%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure which minimizes single stock risk, it is still important to look into a fund's holdings before investing. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.
This ETF has heaviest allocation in the Information Technology sector - about 49.2% of the portfolio. Telecom and Financials round out the top three.
Looking at individual holdings, Nvidia Corp (NVDA) accounts for about 14.86% of total assets, followed by Microsoft Corp (MSFT) and Alphabet Inc Class A (GOOGL).
IUSG's top 10 holdings account for about 58.04% of its total assets under management.
Performance and Risk
The ETF has added roughly 9.85% and was up about 20.52% so far this year and in the past one year (as of 07/21/2026), respectively. IUSG has traded between $149.10 and $193.28 during this last 52-week period.
The fund has a beta of 1.16 and standard deviation of 18.78% for the trailing three-year period, which makes IUSG a medium risk choice in this particular space. With about 393 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk .
Alternatives
iShares Core S&P U.S. Growth ETF is an excellent option for investors seeking to outperform the Style Box - All Cap Growth segment of the market. There are other ETFs in the space which investors could consider as well.
WisdomTree U.S. Quality Growth Fund (QGRW) tracks WISDOMTREE U.S. QUALITY GROWTH INDEX and the iShares Morningstar Growth ETF (ILCG) tracks MORNINGSTAR US LARGE-MID CP BRD GRWTH ID. WisdomTree U.S. Quality Growth Fund has $2.65 billion in assets, iShares Morningstar Growth ETF has $3.13 billion. QGRW has an expense ratio of 0.28% and ILCG changes 0.04%.
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 - All Cap Growth
Bottom Line
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iShares Core S&P U.S. Growth ETF (IUSG): ETF Research Reports
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).