Not as focused as advertised: ETFs do not always offer the level of targeted exposure that they claim to. For example, some ETFs provide exposure to certain countries, and they’ll own companies based in that area. The issue is that often the large companies that comprise much of the fund earn a large portion of their sales from outside the targeted area. For instance, imagine an ETF that gives focused exposure to England, and to do so it owns, among many other companies, a stake in a British-based company such as Diageo, a maker of spirits. But Diageo also earns a huge percentage of its sales from outside the country. So an ETF can be much less focused on a specific niche than you would believe, given the fund’s name and purported target. So you often have to look into a fund’s holdings to understand what you actually own., The best ETF REITs maximize dividend yields, as dividends are the main reason for investing in them. Fund (ticker) YTD performance: 5-year performance: Expense ratio; Schwab U.S. REIT ETF (SCHH), About 63 percent of U.S. investors plan to buy ETFs in the next 12 months, up from 37% in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to State Street Global Advisors’ 2024-2025 ETF Impact Report..