What Are Smart Beta ETFs? Making its debut on 06/16/2006, smart beta exchange traded fund WisdomTree Japan SmallCap Dividend ETF (ARCA:DFJ) provides investors broad exposure to the Asia-Pacific (Developed) ETFs category of the market. What Are Smart Beta ETFs? For a long time now, the ETF industry has been flooded with products based on market capitalization weighted indexes, which are designed to represent the broader market or a particular market segment. A good option for investors who believe in market efficiency, market cap weighted indexes offer a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns. On the other hand, some investors who believe that it is possible to beat the market by superior stock selection opt to invest in another class of funds that track non-cap weighted strategies--popularly known as smart beta. By attempting to pick stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance, non-cap weighted indexes are based on certain fundamental characteristics, or a combination of such. Even though this space provides many choices to investors--think one of the simplest methodologies like equal-weighting and more complicated ones like ...