Subject: Re: Small caps vs large caps
I like IJS as from longer studies pre-1980 back to 1950 with the Compustat database adding an earnings requirement gave an improvement particularly with small caps, though the effect was not there the last 25 years with IJR (without the filter added for positive earnings) having the same performance. I’ll take the longer data range to make my decision, with no discernable disadvantage with IJS.

IJS iShares S&P Small-Cap 600 Value
https://www.ishares.com/us/pro...

IJR iShares Core S&P Small-Cap ETF
https://www.ishares.com/us/pro...

Vanguard has an IJS equivalent that's a little cheaper:
VIOV Vanguard S&P Small-Cap 600 Value
https://investor.vanguard.com/...

Isn't IJS the value slice of the S&P600? Also known as a style index. IJR holds all the stocks in IJS, plus the "growth" stocks in the index.
https://www.spglobal.com/spdji...

They take the S&P600 index and split it into "growth" and "value" components, with overlap. Value is measured by low price to book.

For the case of AVUV take care though - it run only since late 2019 and AVUV is really interesting as it is an mechanical investing (MI) strategy that filters for low valuation and higher margins. As it did well over just 4 years it on the radar of increasly more people - but that is what happens with all *recently* strong funds and any MI strategy can do well for merely 4 years. The marketing effort pumps up also so we tend to observe the recent well performing as promotion bias. Don’t extrapolate the recent outperformance. There is nowhere near enough data to draw anything from it.

Sure. The Avantis methodology is more attractive to many investors over the style indices.
Note that AVUV is a very diversified mechanical strategy, holding 735 stocks (IJS holds 479).