ETF Research

The Research workspace lets you look up any ETF and explore its holdings, exposures, and risk characteristics using data from SEC EDGAR filings.

Search

Navigate to Research → Search or press /. Enter a ticker symbol (e.g., VTI, QQQM, AVUV) to look up an ETF.

To browse ETFs by asset class, category, or geography, use ETF Discovery under Research → Discovery.

Tip

Press / to jump straight to ETF Search — it's the fastest way to look up a fund. After searching, press w to add the ETF to your Watchlist.

Views

Overview

A rich fund profile combining data from two sources:

Yahoo Finance profile (fetched via yfinance, cached 7 days):

• Category (e.g., "Large Blend", "Technology")
• Inception date
• Expense ratio
• Dividend yield
• Beta (3-year)
• Returns: YTD, 3Y, 5Y
• Exchange, average volume, NAV
• Fund description

SEC N-PORT filing (via EDGAR):

• Total assets and net assets
• Number of holdings
• Reporting period and filing date
• Data freshness indicator (🟢 Fresh / 🟡 Acceptable / 🔴 Stale)

The Overview also shows computed Portfolio Shape metrics (top-10 weight, effective N, largest sector) and Source Provenance so you know exactly where each data point comes from and when it was fetched.

Tip

If Yahoo Finance data is unavailable (rate-limited or ticker not found), the Overview still shows all EDGAR-sourced data. Reopen the ETF or wait a moment to retry.

Seasonals

TradingView-style seasonals chart showing year-over-year cumulative returns. Each line represents one calendar year's return trajectory from January 1st.

Key features:

• Year range selection to compare specific years
• Average line toggle across selected years
• Period returns table (1W, 1M, 3M, 6M, YTD, 1Y, 3Y, 5Y, Max)
• High-resolution matplotlib chart (with [charts] dependency) or plotext ASCII fallback

Press t to jump directly to Seasonals from any view.

See the full Seasonals documentation for chart modes, terminal setup, and troubleshooting.

Holdings

Full holdings table from the most recent N-PORT filing. Shows ticker, name, weight, value, and shares for each position.

Example: For VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market), you'll see ~3,700 holdings. The top positions are typically Apple (~6.5%), Microsoft (~6%), Nvidia (~5%), with a long tail of small-cap stocks below 0.01%.

Note

Holdings reflect the most recent quarterly N-PORT filing, not today's actual holdings. There can be a lag of up to 60 days between the reporting period and when the filing appears on EDGAR.

Exposure

Sector and geographic exposure breakdown computed from underlying holdings. Shows what percentage of the fund is allocated to each sector (Technology, Healthcare, Financials, etc.) and country.

What to look for:

• Sector tilts — A "total market" fund like VTI will roughly mirror the S&P 500 sector weights. A thematic fund like QQQM will be heavily tilted toward Technology.
• Geographic concentration — Most US-domiciled ETFs hold primarily US equities, but some (like VXUS) are entirely international.

Concentration

Top-N holdings concentration analysis. Shows how much of the fund is concentrated in the largest positions.

Metrics explained:

Metric	Meaning
Top 10 weight	Cumulative weight of the 10 largest holdings
Top 25 weight	Cumulative weight of the 25 largest holdings
HHI	Herfindahl-Hirschman Index — sum of squared weights (as fractions). Ranges from near 0 (perfectly diversified) to 1 (single holding)
Effective N	1 / HHI — the "equivalent number of equal-weight holdings." A fund with effective N of 50 behaves like 50 equally-weighted stocks
Verdict	Interpretation based on effective N: Broadly diversified (>100), Moderately concentrated (30–100), Highly concentrated (<30)

Example interpretations:

• VTI — ~3,700 holdings, effective N ~120, verdict "Broadly diversified." Despite having thousands of holdings, the cap-weighting means it behaves like ~120 equal stocks.
• QQQ — ~100 holdings, effective N ~30, verdict "Moderately concentrated." The Nasdaq-100 is more top-heavy than it appears.
• XLE — ~25 holdings, effective N ~10, verdict "Highly concentrated." Energy sector ETFs tend to be dominated by a few mega-caps.

Fees

Fund asset information from N-PORT filings. Expense ratio data from prospectus parsing is limited — for detailed fee information, check the Documents view for the latest N-1A or 497 filing.

Risk

Derived risk assessment based on concentration, country exposure, currency diversity, and derivatives presence. Also shows prospectus risk disclosures extracted from the fund's latest N-1A or 497 filing.

Documents

Browse SEC filings (N-PORT, N-CSR, etc.) for the selected ETF. Useful for verifying data or reading the fund's own commentary.

• N-PORT — Quarterly holdings report (this is where etfray gets holdings data)
• N-CSR — Semi-annual/annual shareholder report with commentary and financials

Compare

Side-by-side comparison of multiple ETFs across key metrics. Use this to evaluate alternatives before making allocation decisions.

How to use: Enter 2–5 space-separated tickers in the input field (e.g., VTI ITOT SCHB) and press Enter. Data for all tickers is fetched concurrently.

Comparison rows:

Row	Description
Fund Name	Full fund name
Category	Yahoo Finance fund category (e.g., "Large Blend")
Expense Ratio	Net expense ratio from Yahoo Finance
Dividend Yield	Trailing dividend yield
YTD Return	Year-to-date return
Beta (3Y)	3-year beta vs S&P 500
Holdings Count	Number of holdings in the most recent filing
Total Assets	Fund total assets from N-PORT
Top-10 Weight	Cumulative weight of the 10 largest holdings
Effective N	1 / HHI — equivalent number of equal-weight holdings
HHI	Herfindahl-Hirschman Index
Verdict	Concentration verdict (Broadly diversified / Moderately concentrated / Highly concentrated)
Filing Period	As-of date of the holdings data
Overlap vs [first ticker]	Weight-adjusted overlap percentage between this ETF and the first ticker in the comparison. Computed from the intersection of shared holdings weighted by the smaller position. Only shown for the 2nd–5th ETFs.
Avg 52-Week Return	Weighted average 52-week return across holdings sourced from the web data provider. Reflects the average of the underlying holdings' own trailing returns, not the ETF's own return.

Tips for effective comparison:

• Compare funds in the same category (e.g., VTI vs ITOT vs SCHB for US total market)
• Look at concentration differences — two "similar" funds can have very different top-10 weights
• Check the Overlap row — high overlap means the funds are largely redundant and combining them adds little diversification benefit
• The Avg 52-Week Return column complements the ETF-level YTD row by showing what the underlying holdings returned, not just the fund

Export: Click the Export button to save the comparison table to CSV.

Data Sources

etfray supports two data sources for holdings:

• EDGAR (N-PORT) — Official SEC filings via EdgarTools. Most accurate and authoritative, but filings are quarterly and may lag by up to 60 days after the reporting period.
• Web — Alternative web source with more current data for some funds. Less authoritative but useful when you need recent changes.

How auto mode works: etfray checks which cached source is more recent and uses that. If neither is cached, it tries EDGAR first, then falls back to web.

Configure the preferred source in Settings (Workspace → Settings in the sidebar) or let auto mode pick the best available.

Data freshness indicators

etfray tracks when each data point was fetched and from which source. Data younger than 30 days is considered fresh, 30–90 days is acceptable, and older than 90 days is stale (will trigger a re-fetch on next access). These thresholds are configurable in Settings.