It’s been a relatively choppy start to 2025 for US stocks. Still, the S&P 500 is in the green year to date. Bullish investors have pinned their hopes on relatively strong corporate earnings to outweigh tariff wars, stubborn inflation, and other risks. If you think markets will sustain the bullish momentum from the past couple years, here are 3 ETF screens from the Fidelity.com ETF Screener to consider, plus the top 10 results for each.
Is 2025 value stock time?
Tech and consumer discretionary—which are at or near the top of the S&P 500 weightings—are the only sectors in the red thus far in 2025. Underperformance by those growth-oriented sectors has played a big role in value-oriented stocks taking the lead thus far. After years of growth beating value, could this early trend set the stage for value to outperform this year?
If you think so, here are the top 10 ETFs sorted by net assets for a “very low” price-to-trailing earnings ratio (0 to 14.27), a “very low” price-to-cash flow ratio (0 to 7.61), a “very low” price-to-book ratio (0 to 1.69), and a 90-day average daily volume of at least 43.3K, as of February 27, 2025:
- iShares MSCI EAFE (
) - Avantis US Small Cap Value ETF (
) - Schwab Fundamental International Equity ETF (
) - Dimensional US Targeted Value ETF (
) - Dimensional International Value ETF (
) - iShares MSCI EAFE Small-Cap ETF (
) - Vanguard International High Dividend Yield Index (
) - Pacer US Small Cap Cash Cows 100 ETF (
) - Avantis Emerging Markets Equity ETF (
) - Dimensional World Ex US Core Equity 2 ETF (
)
Setting up a screen can take some practice. But just as important a step can be evaluating the results and understanding the risks associated with each one. For example, several of the results of this screen are small-cap ETFs. Small caps are inherently more risky than large caps, so they may require a little extra due diligence.
Income-generating ETFs
Another aspect of these early 2025 market trends to consider is how they might impact investors’ search for income. If value-oriented investments are potentially favored over growth-oriented investments, that could help boost the appeal of higher-yielding investments (which tend to align more closely with value than growth). Additionally, investors have generally been expecting interest rates to come down, which could also help increase the attractiveness of some higher-yielding investments.
Here are the top 10 ETFs sorted by net assets for a 30-day SEC yield of at least 4.0%, trailing 12-month distribution yield of at least 5.4%, and a 90-day average daily volume of at least 207K, as of February 27, 2025:
- JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF (
) - JPMorgan Nasdaq Equity Premium Income ETF (
) - Janus Henderson AAA Clo ETF (
) - iShares Broad USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (
) - iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (
) - iShares Preferred and Income Securities ETF (
) - Invesco Senior Loan ETF (
) - PGIM Ultra Short Bond (
) - SPDR Blackstone Senior Loan ETF (
) - iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF (
)
An important step you can take after running a screen is to evaluate the quality and appropriateness of the list that is generated. Ask yourself: Does it appear that the screen results match your search criteria? This list includes a mix of both stock and bond ETFs, which have varying characteristics. Depending on what you are looking for, you may want to tinker with the screening criteria to help generate results that align with your objectives.
Bond ETFs
Speaking of bonds… If your investment mix is overallocated to stocks—which can be common when stocks rally as far as they have—it could be a good time to assess if you are diversified across asset classes.
There are several bond ETF screens you could consider—including the preset intermediate core bond fund screen, which invests primarily in investment-grade fixed income investments, such as government, corporate, and securitized debt issues.
Here are the top 10 results, sorted by net assets, as of February 27, 2025:
- Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund ETF Shares (
) - iShares Core US Aggregate Bond ETF (
) - iShares Core Total USD Bond Market ETF (
) - Vanguard Intermediate-Term Bond Index Fund ETF (
) - Fidelity Total Bond ETF (
) - Schwab US Aggregate Bond ETF (
) - SPDR Portfolio Aggregate Bond ETF (
) - Dimensional Core Fixed Income ETF (
) - JPMorgan Core Plus Bond ETF (
) - Pimco Active Bond Exchange-Traded Fund (
)
Given the relatively unique aspects of bond ETFs, it helps to know how they work. Compared with bonds and bond mutual funds, bond ETFs have unique characteristics, including intraday trading and holdings transparency. Moreover, you should understand an ETF's components, which you can find on its ETF snapshot page on Fidelity.com, under Portfolio Composition. On that page, you can also find the ETF's style (value, growth, or blend) and size (large, mid, or small), as well as ratings, key statistics, and fees/expense ratios. Investing in bonds involves risk, including interest rate risk, inflation risk, credit and default risk, call risk, and liquidity risk.
ETF basics
If you think one or more of the ETFs identified by a screen merits deeper consideration, your next step should be to research it further. And always remember to evaluate a fund's costs, including the following:
- Expense ratio: Look for low expense ratios to help reduce your overall costs.1
- Bid-ask spread: Look for small bid-ask spreads to help reduce costs of investing (bid-ask spread is the amount by which the ask price exceeds the bid price for an asset).
- Tracking error: Look for a low tracking error to find ETFs that indicate a better job of replicating their benchmark indexes.
If you find ETFs with similar objectives, you could compare their expense ratios, bid-ask spreads, and/or tracking error to find the better deal. You can filter for all of these factors using the ETF Screener.