Dimensional Fund Advisor, founded in 1981, believes in applying academic research in practical investing to generate higher returns. It offers investment solutions across various asset classes to institutional and individual investors, investment consultants and financial advisors. Dimensional Fund Advisor operates with a workforce of more than 1,600 professionals in more than 15 offices worldwide.
It invests in domestic and foreign equities, fixed-income securities, retirement income funds and real estate and commodity markets. As of June 30, 2025, Dimensional Fund Advisor had nearly $1.3 trillion in assets under management. Over the past four decades, the company has provided investment management strategies to its clients. Founded 41 years ago, this fund family is headquartered in Austin, TX.
Below, we share with you three top-ranked Dimensional mutual funds, namely DFA US Large Company DFUSX, DFA US Micro Cap DFSCX and DFA Emerging Markets Small Cap DEMSX. Each has earned a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and is expected to outperform its peers in the future. Investors can click here to see the complete list of funds.
DFA US Large Company invests the majority of its net assets in equity securities that are part of the S&P 500 Index in almost the same proportion that they are represented in the index. DFUSX also purchases and sells futures contracts and options on futures contracts for U.S. equity securities to adjust its exposure.
DFA US Large Company has three-year annualized returns of 20.5%. As of July 2025, DFUSX held 504 issues, with 8% invested in NVIDIA.
DFA US Micro Cap uses a market-cap-weighted strategy to invest broadly in U.S. micro-cap stocks, using equity futures and options to manage market exposure and cash flows.
DFA US Micro Cap has three-year annualized returns of 10.6%. DFSCX has an expense ratio of 0.42%.
DFA Emerging Markets Small Cap is a feeder fund investing primarily in the DFA Emerging Markets Small Cap Series, which allocates the majority of its assets to approved emerging market small-cap securities.
DFA Emerging Markets Small Cap has three-year annualized returns of 12.4%. Ethan Wren has been one of the fund managers of DEMSX since 2020.
To view the Zacks Rank and the past performance of all Dimensional mutual funds, investors can click here to see the complete list of Dimensional mutual funds.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
