Alpha Architect U.S. Quantitative Value ETF (QVAL)

How has QVAL done since 2014?#

From October 2014 to October 2026, QVAL returned about 9.7% a year. The S&P 500 returned about 14.1% a year over the same dates. Say you put in $10,000 at the start. It would have been worth about $30,446 at the end, with every dividend reinvested.

QVAL returns by month and year#

QVAL rose in 86 of its 145 months (59%). Its best month was April 2020, at 16.1%. Its worst was March 2020, at −28.1%.

How risky is QVAL compared with the S&P 500?#

Measured from October 2021 to October 2026, on the days both traded.

• Beta 0.94. When the S&P 500 moved 1% in a day, QVAL tended to move about 0.94%.
• Correlation 0.76. QVAL moved with the S&P 500 some of the time.
• Up and down months. In months the S&P 500 rose, QVAL rose 104% as much on average. In months it fell, QVAL fell 99% as much.

Is QVAL above its 200-day average?#

QVAL closed 12.7% above its 200-day average on October 16, 2026. A rule that holds QVAL only above that average would hold it today.

What was QVAL’s worst drop?#

A drawdown is how far a fund falls from its last high point. QVAL’s worst fall was −51.5%, from January 26, 2018 to March 23, 2020. It got back to that high on March 12, 2021. On October 16, 2026 it closed at a new high.

What does QVAL hold?#

This fund owns about 50 US stocks that a set of rules picks because they look cheap compared with their business profits. Because it owns a small, picked group, its mix can look very different from the S&P 500 and its results can differ a lot from the overall market.

It does not track an index. Its managers choose what it holds. It had 50 holdings as of October 16, 2026, according to Alpha Architect.

What is the QVAL expense ratio?#

QVAL charges 0.28% a year. An expense ratio is the yearly fee a fund takes to run itself. On $10,000, a 0.28% fee comes to about $28 a year. Of the 162 ETFs on Tactfolio, 27% charge more.

You never get a bill for it. The fund takes the fee out of its own value a little each day.

Which Tactfolio strategies hold QVAL?#

2 classic strategies hold QVAL at least some of the time. Each is a set of written rules you can open, test and copy.

• Robust Asset Allocation Balanced (Alpha Architect RAA), by Wesley Gray (Alpha Architect), 2014
• Robust Asset Allocation Aggressive (Alpha Architect RAA), by Wesley Gray (Alpha Architect), 2014

How does QVAL compare with similar ETFs?#

Funds that can stand in for QVAL:

• VTV: Vanguard Morningstar Value ETF, 0.03% a year
• SCHV: Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Value ETF, 0.04% a year
• SPYV: State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 Value ETF, 0.04% a year
• IVE: iShares S&P 500 Value ETF, 0.18% a year

See all 8 QVAL alternatives, compared on the same dates as QVAL.

Test QVAL in your own rules#

Tactfolio is a platform where you build rules-based investing strategies, backtest them on decades of real prices, share them, and run them automatically in your own Alpaca account. Open the builder, add QVAL, and see how a rule such as “hold it only above its 200-day average” would have done. Strategies run on daily prices and hold US stocks and ETFs only.

The details#

Prices come from Tactfolio’s stored daily prices for QVAL and SPY. Each close is adjusted for splits, and dividends are reinvested on the day the fund pays them out. CAGR is the steady yearly return that turns the starting value into the ending value. Volatility is the yearly standard deviation of daily returns. Beta and correlation compare daily returns with the S&P 500 over the same dates.

Fund facts come from Alpha Architect. We checked them on October 16, 2026. Read what a backtest simulates and how to read drawdown and CAGR for more on these measures.