COWZ, QUAL, and SPHQ All Target “Better” Stocks. They Disagree Completely on What That Means
COWZ, QUAL, and SPHQ All Target “Better” Stocks. They Disagree Completely on What That Means
Ryne MauckFri, October 9, 2026 at 10:03 PM UTC
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marog - pixcells / Shutterstock.com (marog - pixcells / Shutterstock.com)COWZ, QUAL, and SPHQ each aim to put you in higher-quality companies, but their portfolios barely recognize each other. Before you stack two of these funds for diversification, you need to see how little ground they actually share.Quick Read -
QUAL and SPHQ concentrate roughly 43% of assets in their top 10 holdings, while COWZ spreads evenly with just 20% there.
COWZ leads short-term with a 22% one-year return, but trails SPHQ's 84% five-year gain versus its own 70%.
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Three popular ETFs all aim to put you in better companies, and they agree on just 12 of them. That's the finding from SEC N-PORT filings (the detailed portfolio reports funds submit to regulators) dated July 31, 2026, covering the Pacer US Cash Cows 100 ETF (CBOE:COWZ), the iShares MSCI USA Quality Factor ETF (CBOE:QUAL) and the Invesco S&P 500 Quality ETF (NYSEARCA:SPHQ).
As of those filings, the companies held by all three were Accenture, Adobe, Autodesk, Automatic Data Processing, Dexcom, Expand Energy, Expeditors International of Washington, F5, NVR, NetApp, ResMed and Zoetis. The overlap numbers tell a different story for anyone treating two of these funds as interchangeable upgrades over a plain index fund.
Depending on the pair, you've either diversified far more than you realized or much less than you think. These are large funds, too. Net assets stood at $46.53 billion for QUAL, $19.45 billion for SPHQ and $18.69 billion for COWZ.
Their Biggest Holdings Look Like Three Different Funds
As of the N-PORT filing date, COWZ's largest positions were Booking Holdings at 2.22%, Bristol-Myers Squibb at 2.18%, HCA Healthcare at 2.07%, Marathon Petroleum at 2.06%, and General Dynamics at 2.05%. That's a travel platform, a drugmaker, a hospital operator, a refiner, and a defense contractor.
QUAL's top five were Microsoft at 7.16%, Apple at 6.64%, NVIDIA at 5.85%, TJX Companies at 3.98%, and Meta Platforms at 3.69%.
SPHQ led with Mastercard at 5.76%, Visa at 5.57%, Apple at 5.21%, GE Vernova at 4.13%, and Costco Wholesale at 3.99%.
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The "Cash Cows" name points to cash generation, and the portfolio fits that description: refiners, pharma, and telecom carriers sit where the other two hold mega-cap tech and payment networks.
Two of These Funds Lean Hard on Their Top 10
Most investors miss concentration. COWZ held 100 stocks, and its ten largest made up just 20.4% of the fund. QUAL held 125 stocks with 43.2% in its top ten. SPHQ held 100 stocks, with 43.1% in its top ten.
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In practice, a handful of companies drive results in QUAL and SPHQ. A rough quarter for Microsoft or Mastercard shows up immediately. COWZ spreads its money more equally, so no single company can make or break the fund.
Search for Quality, Different Portfolios
QUAL and SPHQ both put "Quality" in their names, and they share 49 holdings, the largest overlap of any pair. By comparison, COWZ shared 22 holdings with QUAL and 27 with SPHQ.
The weights matter more than the counts. Those shared companies made up 47.3% of QUAL's net assets but 61.4% of SPHQ's. The gap comes from how each fund sizes the same names. The overlapping companies are a majority of SPHQ's portfolio, while QUAL, the bigger fund with more holdings, keeps over half its money in companies SPHQ doesn't share.
For COWZ, the names it shared with QUAL made up only 20.3% of net assets.
COWZ Leads Short Term but Trails Over Five Years
Prices are as of 3:50 PM ET on October 8, 2026. Returns are price returns.
Fund
Price
1-Year
5-Year
$68.84
15.65%
22.34%
70.42%
$226.11
14.53%
16.53%
78.89%
$85.38
14.66%
17.14%
84.12%
COWZ, the fund least like the other two, leads both year-to-date and over the past year (TTM). Over five years, it has the lowest return of the three, and SPHQ has the highest.
Read the Holdings Before You Trust the Label
Every fund company picks its own name, and words like "quality" carry no common standard. Two funds making the same promise can hand you very different portfolios. The holdings list is the only reliable way to know what you own.
Treat the holdings as the product and the name as the sales pitch. Holding QUAL and SPHQ together means realizing that most of SPHQ's money overlaps with QUAL. If you pair COWZ with either one, you're holding two very different portfolios. Run the overlap yourself before adding a second "better stocks" fund.
These holdings change, so the next round of N-PORT filings will show whether the gap between the two quality funds narrows or continues widening.
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Source: “AOL Money”
