Homebuilders

Hugely popular XHB provides quirky and diffuse exposure to homebuilders. It selects firms by market-cap, then equally weights its components—an approach that Fits poorly to our cap-weighted benchmark. The fund reaches well beyond industry bounds by our lights: Most holdings land outside the homebuilding category. While XHB doubtless provides more diversification than our narrow benchmark, investors looking for hefty stakes in leading names won’t find them here, and should consider archrival ITB. Still, XHB typically costs less to hold than ITB, and is plenty large and liquid.