Nasdaq AMZN Amazon

The U.S. retail industry plays an important role in the functioning of the economy. Robust consumer spending and rapid expansion of e-commerce have fueled the upward trajectory of the sector in recent months, showcasing steady gro

Many experienced investors know that it’s hard to beat the market over time. When they say this, they mean that it’s difficult to pick stocks and ETFs that can sustainably outperform broader market indices like the S&P 500 ( SPX ) on a long-term basis.  This is with good reason -- the S&P 500 sets a high bar with an annualized total return of just over 10% going all the way back to 1957 when it took on its current incarnation with 500 components.   Let’s take a look at one popular ETF, the Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Growth ETF ( NYSEARCA:SCHG) ,  and see if it’s worthy of a spot in investors' portfolios by being one of the rare ETFs that beats the odds and can help investors outperform the market over time.  What Does SCHG ETF Do? SCHG is a growth-oriented ETF from Charles Schwab ( NYSE:SCHW ) that has about $18.7 billion in assets under management. According to Schwab, the ETF seeks to replicate the performance of “the total return of the Dow Jones U.S. Large-Cap Growth Total Stock Market Index” before fees and expenses.   Blue-Chip Holdings Because it invests in an index composed of large-cap U.S. growth stocks, most investors will likely be familiar with SCHG’s top holdings, which skew largely towards the mega-cap growth stocks that lead today’s stock market. Below, you’ll find a list of SCHG’s top 10 holdings using TipRanks’ holdings tool. Apple ( NASDAQ:AAPL ) is SCHG's largest holding with a 14.1% weighting, followed closely by Microsoft ( NASDAQ:MSFT ), which has a 12.6% weighting. Amazon ( NASDAQ:AMZN ), Nvidia ( NASDAQ:NVDA ), and Alphabet ( NASDAQ:GOOGL ) round out the top five. However, it’s not all tech stocks, as UnitedHealth Group ( NYSE:UNH ) and Visa ( NYSE:V ) take the final two spots in SCHG's top 10.    SCHG is diversified in that it owns many stocks, with 243 total holdings. However, its top 10 holdings account for 55.5% of the fund, making the ETF a bit top-heavy, especially when considering that Microsoft and Apple combine to account for over a quarter of SCHG’s total assets.  This is a strong group of holdings, as five of the 10 feature Smart Scores of 8 out of 10 or better. The Smart Score is TipRanks’ proprietary quantitative stock scoring system. It gives stocks a score from 1 to 10 based on eight market key factors. The score is data-driven and does not involve any human intervention. A Smart Score of 8 or above is equivalent to an Outperform rating. SCHG itself has an outperform-equivalent ETF Smart Score of 8. Is SCHG Stock a Buy, According to Analysts? Turning to Wall Street, SCHG has a Moderate Buy consensus rating, as 68.04% of analyst ratings are Buys, 28.42% are Holds, and 3.54% are Sells. At $78.98, the average SCHG stock price target implies 7.4% upside potential. Impressive Track Record Ultimately, you want to evaluate how any investment has performed over the long term, and SCHG does not disappoint in this regard. As of the end of May, the growth-oriented ETF posted a scorching three-year annualized total return of 18.5%. Zooming out to a five-year time frame, SCHG cooled down a bit from that red-hot rate but still posted an impressive five-year annualized return of 13.5%. Going out even further, over the past 10 years, SCHG upped this return to 14.4% on an annualized basis. Going all the way back to its inception in 2009, SCHG has returned 14.2% on an annualized basis.  As you can see, SCHG has posted double-digit returns on an annualized basis for more than 10 years, making this ETF a long-term winner. It’s hard to find fault with these types of results, and these are the types of long-term returns that can help investors to grow their portfolios significantly over time. These total returns also mean that SCHG is a rare ETF that can say it beats the broader market over time. As of the end of May, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF ( NYSEARCA:VOO) , a good proxy for the S&P 500, had annualized total returns of 12.8%, 11%, and 11.9% on a three-, five- and 10-year basis, respectively, meaning that SCHG beat the S&P 500 over all three time frames.  Alternatively, because it features large-cap growth and tech stocks so heavily, it is also worth comparing SCHG to a Nasdaq ETF like the Invesco QQQ Trust ( NASDAQ:QQQ) , which invests in the Nasdaq 100 Index ( NDX ). SCHG handily beat QQQ over the three year timespan, with the aforementioned 18.5% annualized return versus QQQ’s 15%. However, going out to five years, QQQ’s 16.2% return beats SCHG’s 13.5%. Going all the way out to 10 years, QQQ also outperformed SCHG with an 18% return to SCHG’s 14.4%. As you can see, SCHG has been better than QQQ in recent years, but QQQ has the edge when expanding the time frame out to five and 10 years. However, at the end of the day, these both look like great ETFs.  Below, you can take a look at a comparison of SCHG, VOO, and QQQ using TipRanks’ ETF Comparison Tool, which lets investors compare up to 20 ETFs at a time across a wide variety of criteria. Hard to Beat These Fees In addition to proving its mettle as a strong performer over time, SCHG is also attractive because of its low fees. With an expense ratio of just 0.04%, an investor putting $10,000 into SCHG would pay just $4 in fees in year one -- less than a cup of coffee at many places nowadays. Assuming SCHG gains 5% a year going forward and the current fees stay the same, an SCHG investor would pay just $51 in fees over the course of the decade, making this a cost-effective ETF that helps investors to preserve and grow the principal of their investment over time.   For the sake of comparison, QQQ's 0.2% expense ratio is actually a very reasonable one, but using the same parameters, after 10 years, an investor would pay $255 in fees, or about five times as much as they would pay with SCHG. Investor Takeaway It's hard to beat the S&P 500 over the long term, so when you find an ETF that does, you want to pay attention. With a long history of beating the broader market, high-quality blue-chip holdings, and investor-friendly fees, SCHG looks like a solid building block for investors to make a core piece of their long-term portfolios.  Disclosure

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq edged higher on Wednesday as gains in tech giants Apple and Microsoft offset worries over the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate hikes slowing the U.S. economy.

A U.S. judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc AMZN.Obrought by the parents of two teenagers who committed suicide by consuming sodium nitrite they bought on the online retailer's platform.

Amazon AMZN is constantly making strong efforts toward enhancing its e-commerce offerings on the back of its Prime program.This is evident from its latest move of making Business Prime Duo free for business-oriented Prime members.

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) excels at identifying technological trends -- and then building the chips that power them. From video games to cloud computing, cryptocurrency to the metaverse, robotics to autonomous vehicles, the semiconductor leader has played a leading role in fueling th

E-commerce stocks were big winners during the pandemic, but in the post-pandemic recovery, the sector has struggled. Consumer spending has shifted back to brick-and-mortar stores and services like travel, entertainment, and restaurants that were generally off-limits during the pa

Payments and interest on federal student loans were suspended early in the COVID-19 pandemic, providing financial relief to millions of borrowers. That suspension was extended eight times, but the end is finally near. Starting in October, borrowers must resume making payments.

Bull vs. Bear is a weekly feature where the VettaFi writers’ room takes opposite sides for a debate on controversial stocks, strategies, or market ideas — with plenty of discussion of ETF ideas to play either angle. For this edition of Bull vs. Bear, James Comtois and Nick Peters-Golden discussed the case for and against [...] Read more at ETFtrends.com.

Ocado shares fell by as much as 11% on Wednesday, with traders attributing the drop to a media report that said Amazon had denied reports it would make a bid for the British retail company.

Below is Validea's guru fundamental report for AMAZON.COM, INC. (AMZN). Of the 22 guru strategies we follow, AMZN rates highest using our P/B Growth Investor model based on the published strategy of Partha Mohanram. This growth model looks for low book-to-market stocks that exhi

The acronym "FAANG" refers to Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), Apple, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Netflix, and Alphabet (formerly Google).

Businesses and Big Tech on Wednesday criticised European Union data rules agreed between EU countries and lawmakers, saying they could hinder data flow and contractual freedom, while a pan-European consumer group said they did little for Europeans.

A smart beta exchange traded fund, the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Consumer Discretionary ETF (RSPD) debuted on 11/01/2006, and offers broad exposure to the Consumer Discretionary ETFs category of the market.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) stock has made a strong recovery this year after tumbling in 2022. The stock is still well below its pandemic-era high, but it's been moving in the right direction. The company remains the king of e-commerce and cloud computing, although both businesses are

The S&P 500 slipped into a bear market in early 2022 as economic uncertainty cast a shadow over Wall Street. The broad-based index regained some momentum this year, climbing more than 20% from its October lows, but it remains about 8.6% below its high. That sparked some debat

For much of the past 15 years, it seemed the growth of streaming video was unstoppable. Even after the pandemic-induced streaming boom, many of the major streaming platforms continued to generate growth -- albeit at a slower pace.

Amazon (AMZN) closed at $129.18 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.45% move from the prior day. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 1.15% gain on the day. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.63%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy i

Nearly halfway through 2023, a relatively unheralded ETF with under $1 billion in assets under management is the best-performing actively-managed diversified ETF this year. It’s the Fidelity Blue Chip Growth ETF ( BATS:FBCG) , and it’s up a scintillating 38.9% year to date. Here’s a look at why this ETF is on a tear, how it invests, and whether it could be a good addition to investors' portfolios.    Actively vs. Passively-Managed Funds Before delving into the specifics of FBCG itself, let’s briefly touch on what actively managed means and the difference between actively-managed and passively-managed funds. Nowadays, many of the market’s most-popular ETFs are passively managed, meaning that they simply track a specific index with the goal of replicating its performance before fees and expenses. Proponents say that index funds remove the room for human error.  Conversely, in an actively-managed fund, a portfolio manager or several managers actively make investment decisions in an effort to outperform a specific benchmark and generate superior returns. Actively-managed funds generally have higher turnover and more trading and are typically more expensive (in terms of fees) than passively-managed funds or index funds.  Nonetheless, index funds have grown in popularity in recent years, as research has consistently shown that most active managers fail to beat their benchmark over the long term.     What Does the FBCG ETF Do? Now that we've reviewed active versus passive, let's focus on actively-managed FBCG. With $632.6 million in assets under management (AUM), FBCG doesn’t get quite the same love from investors as some of the more popular large-cap growth ETFs out there. However, part of the reason for this is that it’s relatively new -- the ETF only launched in 2020. It normally invests at least 80% of its assets in blue-chip companies, which Fidelity Management & Research says are “well-known, well-established, and well-capitalized” companies. Fidelity says that the companies FBCG invests in typically have medium or large market caps, and they believe that they exhibit “above-average growth potential.” Now that we know FBCG’s strategy and what it looks for in investments, what does it look like in practice?  FBCG's Blue-Chip Portfolio FBCG holds 162 positions, and its top 10 holdings account for 55.4% of assets.   With a focus on blue-chip, medium- and large-cap growth stocks, it’s no surprise that FBCG’s top positions are dominated by large-cap tech stocks. Much has been made about the broader market’s gains in 2023, coming largely from the "magnificent seven" -- Apple ( NASDAQ:AAPL ), Microsoft ( NASDAQ:MSFT ), Nvidia ( NASDAQ:NVDA ), Amazon ( NASDAQ:AMZN ), Alphabet ( NASDAQ:GOOGL ), Meta Platforms ( NASDAQ:META ), and Tesla ( NASDAQ:TSLA ). These seven stocks are also FBCG’s top seven holdings, which explains why the ETF has had such a strong performance this year. Outside of the "magnificent seven," three more tech-oriented stocks, Marvell Technologies ( NASDAQ:MRVL ), Uber ( NYSE:UBER ), and Netflix ( NASDAQ:NFLX ), round out FBCG’s top holdings.  Take a look at the table below from TipRank’s holdings tool for an overview of FBCG’s top 10 holdings. While FBCG is tech-heavy, it isn’t limited to tech stocks. Just outside the top 10, you’ll find stocks like UnitedHealth Group ( NYSE:UNH ), Lowe’s ( NYSE:LOW ), Eli Lilly ( NYSE:LLY ), Nike ( NYSE:NKE ), and Mastercard ( NYSE:MA ). Energy drink company Celsius Holdings ( NASDAQ:CELH ), which is up 136% over the past year, is also among FBCG’s holdings, so the managers are finding some strong performers beyond the "usual suspects."   In terms of sector allocations, information technology is by far the largest sector that the fund invests in, with a 40.9% weighting (as of the end of Q1). After that, consumer discretionary accounts for a 22.9% weighting, and communications services accounts for a 13.9% weighting. All other sectors have a single-digit weighting.  Is FBCG Stock a Buy, According to Wall Street's Top Analysts? Turning to the opinions of Wall Street's best-performing analysts (measured by TipRanks), FBCG has a Moderate Buy consensus rating, as 70.1% of analyst ratings are Buys, 27.2% are Holds, and 2.7% are Sells. At $32.17, the average FBCG stock price target implies 9.8% upside potential.  Paying the Price for Active Management One downside to FBCG is that it has relatively high fees, with an expense ratio of 0.59%. This means that an investor putting $10,000 into FBCG will pay $59 in fees in year one. Over the course of a 10-year investment, assuming the expense ratio remains the same and that the fund gains 5% a year, this investor will pay $738 in fees.  In fairness to FBCG, this is an actively-managed fund, which is more expensive to run than a passive index fund, but this is still something investors need to keep in mind, as these fees add up over time.  Investor Takeaway With large-cap tech stocks having a huge year, FBCG is in the driver’s seat, and the fund has made hay while the sun is shining with a red-hot gain of nearly 40% year-to-date. The fund has a high-quality portfolio of blue-chip stocks and a solid outlook from analysts, so there’s a lot to like here.  On the other hand, the fairly new fund hasn’t yet established much of a long-term track record, so it remains to be seen how it performs over a longer time frame. Additionally, its high fees are something that investors need to consider when investing.  Alternatively, investors who want to invest in these same types of stocks have plenty of other options that have longer track records and lower fees, such as the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF ( NASDAQ:QQQ) or the Schwab U.S. Large Cap Growth ETF ( NYSEARCA:SCHG) .  The top 10 holdings of QQQ and SCHG have plenty of overlap with FBCG’s top 10, as all three funds hold the "magnificent seven" within their top 10 holdings, and both QQQ and SCHG are up nicely year-to-date, with total returns of 37.9% and 33.5%, respectively. QQQ’s expense ratio of 0.2% and SCHG’s expense ratio of 0.04% are considerably lower than that of FBCG. An investor in QQQ would pay $255 in fees over a 10-year time frame, while an investor in SCHG would pay just $51 (assuming 5% annual returns).  This isn’t to say that there's anything wrong with a more expensive, actively-managed ETF, especially one that is performing as well as FBCG. Investors interested in this style of portfolio should certainly kick the tires on it. This ETF looks like a decent choice for investors who are interested in something actively-managed or want to simply invest in blue-chip, large-cap growth stocks and are okay with the higher expense ratio and shorter track record. Disclosure  

U.S. stock indexes rebounded on Tuesday from a recent losing streak as upbeat economic data soothed investor worries about an imminent recession triggered by the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate hikes.