It’s hard to argue with the results of the S&P Indices Versus Active (SPIVA) study. For those unfamiliar, it compares active fund managers against their benchmark indices, and more often than not, the index comes out ahead.
Over the past 15 years, 89.93% of large-cap funds underperformed the S&P 500. Shorten the time horizon, though, and that gap narrows a bit. Over a one-year period, underperformance improves to 78.78%. Still not great odds, but it does show that active strategies can have their moments.
Over shorter time frames, like year-to-date, it’s entirely possible for the S&P 500 to be beaten by a wide range of strategies. If you want to outperform the benchmark, you have to look different from it. So far in 2026, three ETFs have done exactly that, according to data from Testfolio.io.
| ETF Name | AUM | Expense Ratio | YTD Total Return as of March 23 |
| SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEMKT: SPY | $651.31 billion | 0.0945% | -3.63% |
| Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (NYSEMKT: RSP) | $84.26 billion | 0.2% | +0.49% |
| VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NYSE MKT: NLR | $4.54 billion | 0.56% | +6.16% |
| Vanguard Total International Stock ETF (NASDAQ: VXUS) | $145.8 billion | 0.05% | +1.62% |
What’s interesting is that these ETFs have almost nothing in common with each other, but together, they highlight a broader shift in the market: After years of dominance by the Magnificent Seven, investors are finally starting to look elsewhere for returns.
A crowded trade in mega-cap tech has made alternative approaches more appealing, whether that means diversifying internationally, rebalancing toward equal weight, or making a specific thematic bet. Here’s what you need to know about each one.
RSP: A More Balanced Take on the S&P 500
You can think of RSP as a bridge ETF. It’s designed for investors who still want the familiarity of the S&P 500 and its portfolio of blue-chip companies, but without the heavy emphasis on the largest names.
In a traditional S&P 500 index, companies are weighted by market capitalization. The bigger the company, the more influence it has on the index.
RSP flips that structure. Every quarter, each of the 500 companies is reset to a 0.2% weight, regardless of size. That has meaningful implications.
For one, sector exposure shifts significantly. Technology drops from about 33% in the standard S&P 500 to roughly 14% in RSP. In contrast, industrials rise from around 8.5% to about 15.4%.
Concentration also drops sharply. According to ETF Central, the top 15 holdings in the S&P 500 account for about 42% of the index. In RSP, that figure falls to just 4.5%.
So far in 2026, that broader exposure has helped. As high valuations in mega-cap tech have come under pressure, RSP has held up better thanks to its diversification.
But there are trade-offs. The quarterly rebalance limits how much winners can run. Over long periods, where a small number of stocks tend to drive most of the market’s returns, that can lead to underperformance. Historically, that has been the case.
Costs also matter. RSP charges a 0.20% expense ratio. That’s about $20 per year on a $10,000 investment, which is still reasonable, but meaningfully higher than competing S&P 500 ETFs that charge as little as 0.02% to 0.03%.
NLR: A Broader Bet on Nuclear Energy
Many investors try to gain exposure to nuclear energy by focusing solely on uranium miners. That approach has its limitations.
The universe of uranium miners is relatively small, often concentrated in a handful of companies based in Canada, Australia, and select emerging markets like Kazakhstan. These businesses are highly cyclical and, in some cases, exposed to political risks such as nationalization or expropriation.
NLR on the other hand, doesn’t just hold miners. It also includes utilities and industrial companies involved in building, maintaining, and operating nuclear power plants, as well as companies that generate electricity from nuclear energy.
That diversification helps reduce reliance on any single part of the nuclear energy value chain. The portfolio is still fairly concentrated at 29 holdings, but it’s less top-heavy than a pure-play uranium miner ETF.
As with most thematic ETFs, there is a cost. NLR charges a 0.56% expense ratio, which is on the higher side. That makes it more suitable as a targeted allocation rather than a core long-term holding for many investors.
VXUS: Going Beyond the U.S.
While RSP and NLR still have some overlap with the S&P 500, VXUS takes you somewhere entirely different.
It provides exposure to more than 8,000 market cap-weighted stocks across both developed and emerging markets. That means countries like Japan, the U.K., and Canada on one side, and China, Taiwan, and India on the other.
If your portfolio is entirely U.S.-focused, you’re only capturing about 60% of the global equity market. VXUS fills in the rest. It’s also a natural complement to an S&P 500 ETF, helping balance your portfolio during periods when U.S. stocks underperform.
History offers a clear example. From 1999 to 2009, often referred to as the “lost decade,” U.S. equities struggled through the aftermath of the dot-com crash and the global financial crisis, while international markets held up better.
Adding VXUS doesn’t guarantee outperformance, but it does reduce reliance on a single country’s stock market.