ETF Evaluator: American Century® U.S. Quality Value ETF () Follow This ETF

American Century® U.S. Quality Value ETF Overview

American Century® U.S. Quality Value ETF (VALQ) is a passively managed U.S. Equity Large Value exchange-traded fund (ETF). American Century Investments launched the ETF in 2018.

The investment seeks the fund seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the American Century U.S. Quality Value Index. Under normal market conditions, the fund invests at least 80% of its assets in the component securities of the underlying index. The underlying index is designed to select securities of large- and mid-capitalization companies that are undervalued or have sustainable income.

About American Century® U.S. Quality Value ETF (VALQ)

There are 2 members of the management team with an average tenure of 2.54 years: Will Enderle (2022) and Stephen Quance (2025). Management tenure is more important for actively managed ETFs than passive index ETFs.

The ETF has 2 primary benchmarks: Russell 1000 TR USD index with a weighting of 100% and American Century US Quality Value PR USD index with a weighting of 100%. American Century® U.S. Quality Value ETF has 223 securities in its portfolio. The top 10 holdings constitute 22.0% of the ETF’s assets. The ETF meets the SEC requirement of being classified as a diversified fund. The ETF is not considered to have an ESG focus with its investment selection and management.

American Century® U.S. Quality Value ETF is part of the Equity global asset class and is within the U.S. Equity ETF group. American Century® U.S. Quality Value ETF has 0.7% of its portfolio invested in foreign issues. The overall assets allocated to domestic stock is 98.9% There is 0.7% allocated to foreign stock, and 0.0% is allocated to preferred stocks. The bond allocation as a percentage of total assets is 0.0% (0.0% domestic bond, 0.0% foreign bond and 0.0% convertible bond). American Century® U.S. Quality Value ETF has 0.4% of the portfolio in cash.

Assets Under Management

The fund has $330 million in total assets, which is below the $5 billion average for the Large Value category. Normally, lower assets under management translates to higher average expense ratios, and greater total assets are desired. However, for some investment categories, such as small-cap investing, it may be difficult for the manager to fully employ the desired active strategy if assets grow too large or too quickly.

VALQ Performance and Fees

The expense ratio measures how much of a fund’s assets are used for administrative expenses and operating expenses, including adviser fees and fees for the transfer agent and custodial services. The American Century® U.S. Quality Value ETF expense ratio is below average compared to funds in the Large Value category. American Century® U.S. Quality Value ETF has an expense ratio of 0.29%, which is 22% lower than its category average, making the fund expense ratio grade a B. While it is difficult to predict returns, it is known that high annual expense ratios reduce your rate of return, and excessive fees are difficult to overcome. Active management normally comes with higher expense ratios than passive index management. Certain investment categories such as small company and foreign also normally have higher expense ratios. It is best to compare fund expense ratios against the category averages for meaningful assessments.

High portfolio turnover can translate to higher expenses and lower aftertax returns. American Century® U.S. Quality Value ETF has a portfolio turnover rate of 147%, which indicates that it holds its assets around / 0.0 years. By way of comparison, the average portfolio turnover is 40% for the Large Value category.

Recently, in the month of July 2026, American Century® U.S. Quality Value ETF returned 0.3%, which earned it a grade of F, as the Large Value category had an average return of 2.4%. The letter grades of A, B, C, D and F are based upon relative rankings within the investment category. A grade of A, for example, would indicate that the return is in the highest 20% for that time period compared to all ETFs in that category.

American Century® U.S. Quality Value ETF has a trailing yield of 1.80%, which is above the 1.70% category average. The fund normally distributes its income quarterly.

It’s natural to seek the best-performing investments, but you must consider the relationship between risk and return and the impact of costs and taxes on your realized returns.

American Century® U.S. Quality Value ETF Grades

Year to date, the ETF has returned 6.7%, 7.7 percentage points worse than the category, which translates into a grade of F. The fund has returned 16.0% over the past year (grade of F), 13.3% over the past three years (grade of F) and 8.8% per year over the past five years (grade of F).

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