First Trust Dorsey Wright DALI Equity ETFDALI

The First Trust Dorsey Wright DALI Equity ETF (DALI) is a US-listed momentum ETF that follows a Dorsey Wright relative-strength model, ranking large-cap US stocks by price momentum and rebalancing quarterly. The fund’s mandate is to capture the performance of the Dorsey Wright DALI Index, which is designed to identify stocks exhibiting strong relative strength characteristics. The issuer markets DALI as a tactical, research-driven strategy, but the portfolio’s composition is mechanically driven by a published methodology that’s publicly available on the Dorsey Wright website and SEC filings. The fund’s top holdings are dominated by mega-cap US technology and consumer names, reflecting both the momentum screen and the inherent tilt of the US large-cap universe.

DALI’s expense ratio is 0.60%, which is materially higher than a plain vanilla S&P 500 ETF and closer to the fee range of actively managed US equity funds. The fund’s AUM stands at approximately $1.2 billion, which is a modest but not insignificant sum for a thematic ETF, though it pales against the scale of broad-market US equity ETFs. Liquidity is adequate for retail-sized orders but not designed for block trades, with bid-ask spreads tight enough for most investors but wide enough to remind you this is a niche product rather than a liquidity behemoth. The fund trades on Nasdaq under the ticker DALI, with volume data and pricing available via standard market data feeds.

The Dorsey Wright DALI Index methodology is publicly documented and centres on a rules-based relative-strength screen applied to a universe of US large-cap stocks. The index ranks stocks by their price momentum over a defined lookback period and selects constituents based on their relative strength scores. The index is reconstituted and rebalanced quarterly, with turnover driven by changes in relative strength rankings rather than fundamental developments. The index’s rules are set out in the prospectus and methodology documents filed with the SEC, which are accessible via the SEC EDGAR database.

DALI’s tracking method is purely index-based: it aims to replicate the Dorsey Wright DALI Index’s returns before fees, with performance deviation driven by tracking error, fees, and the fund’s own operational costs. The index itself is calculated and maintained by Dorsey Wright & Associates, a subsidiary of Nasdaq, which provides the methodology and index data. The fund’s holdings are disclosed daily on the issuer’s website and in regulatory filings, allowing investors to see exactly which stocks are in the basket at any given time.

The fund’s marketing leans heavily on the Dorsey Wright brand and the promise of a disciplined momentum strategy, but the reality is a rules-based screen applied to a universe that’s heavily tilted toward the US equity market’s largest constituents. The issuer’s fees are the most transparent part of the story: 0.60% is what you pay for a momentum tilt that could, in theory, be replicated by any investor with a spreadsheet and a Bloomberg terminal. The fund’s performance will always be a function of the momentum screen’s efficacy and the fee drag, with no alpha guaranteed beyond the market’s inherent tendency to reward recent winners.

The Nasdaq listing page for DALI provides real-time pricing, trading volume, and basic fund metrics, but the most useful source for understanding the fund’s mechanics is the SEC EDGAR filings, which include the prospectus, methodology documents, and regulatory disclosures. The FINRA Fund Analyzer tool can be used to compare DALI’s fees and risk metrics against other US equity ETFs, though it does not provide performance data or forward-looking insights. The fund’s AUM and trading activity are visible on Nasdaq’s market data pages, which confirm the fund’s modest but stable presence in the US ETF environment.