The verdict
Point by point, who wins.
VEQT is the market by market cap: the cheapest, lowest-decision bet on every public company. CAGE is the same global equity exposure rotated toward what academic research has called premium-paying corners since 1928: smaller companies, profitable companies, value names. The choice is between index orthodoxy and the factor pitch, not between active and passive.
01Cost (MER)VEQT ~0.20% effective vs CAGE 0.27%. Cap-weighted indexing is cheaper because it's the lowest-effort weighting scheme. You pay extra for Avantis's factor screens.VEQT
02Weighting philosophyVEQT mirrors what investors collectively own. CAGE deliberately overweights smaller-cap and higher-profitability value names. Both have defensible academic foundations, but they answer different questions.Tie
03Track recordVEQT launched 2019 with through-cycle data. CAGE launched 2024: the underlying factor research goes back nearly a century, but the Canadian wrapper itself is brand new.VEQT
04Holdings breadthVEQT holds 13,700+ securities globally. CAGE holds ~4,500, deliberately concentrated in factor-favored quadrants. The smaller count is a design choice.VEQT
05Expected factor premiaIf size and value premia persist as they have historically, CAGE's tilts should compound to a meaningful edge over multi-decade horizons. The premia have disappeared for 10+ year stretches before, so this is a long-horizon bet.CAGE
06Behavioural riskHolding a factor fund through a mega-cap growth run is harder than holding the market through it: the underperformance feels like a choice. VEQT removes that temptation by definition.VEQT
The recommendation
Hold VEQT if you believe market-cap weighting is the honest default and any deviation is closet-active in disguise. Hold CAGE if you've read Fama–French, want a single-ticket way to harvest the size and value premia, and can sit through years of mega-cap growth dominance without flinching. Don't pick CAGE for the hype. Pick it for the thesis, or skip it.
Editorial analysis · Public fund data · Not financial advice · Your situation may differ