ASCI Funds launches American Customer Satisfaction ETF

Nov 1st, 2016 | By | Category: Equities

ASCI Funds has launched the American Customer Satisfaction Core Alpha ETF (Bats: ASCI), providing exposure to US-listed equities whose firms enjoy high customer satisfaction relative to their sector peers.

ASCI Funds launches American Customer Satisfaction ETF

ASCI Funds launches American Customer Satisfaction ETF.

The fund tracks the American Customer Satisfaction Investable Index which utilizes customer satisfaction metrics for over 350 brands, representing over 150 large cap securities for inclusion in the index. The smart beta index weights stocks within each sector by their relative customer satisfaction scores and sector constraints are applied at the time of index rebalance to provide a diversified portfolio across all US sectors.

The methodology driving the index measures the satisfaction of US household consumers with the quality of products and services offered by both foreign and domestic firms with significant share in US markets. According to ASCI Funds, the index serves as a national indicator of the health of the US economy, as well as a tool for gauging the competitiveness of individual firms and predicting future profitability.

Each year, roughly 100,000 customers are surveyed about the products and services they use the most. The survey data serve as inputs to a Partial Least Squares (PLS) econometric model that benchmarks customer satisfaction with more than 350 companies in 43 industries and 10 economic sectors.

The firm maintains that results are strongly related to a number of essential indicators of micro and macroeconomic performance. At the macro level, customer satisfaction has been shown to be predictive of both consumer spending and gross domestic product growth. At the micro level, companies that display high levels of customer satisfaction tend to have higher earnings and stock returns relative to competitors.

ASCI’s total expense ratio (TER) is 0.65%. It is available to trade on E*TRADE’s commission-free ETF platform.

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