Learn · Holdings filed for periods June 30, 2026 to August 31, 2026
How do I check whether my fund is a closet indexer?
Data as of June 30, 2026 to August 31, 2026 holdings (filed July 20, 2026 to October 29, 2026)
Look up your fund’s active share against its best-fit index, then compare its fee with the cheapest fund tracking that same index. If active share is under 60% and the fee is higher, you are paying active prices for a largely index-matching portfolio.
Our registry covers 200 funds, 120 of them with every input the comparison needs, as of August 31, 2026. If yours is not among them, the steps below still work from filings you can read yourself.
Four steps
- Find the fund’s own benchmark. It is named in the prospectus and the annual report. Marketing material often compares against something flattering instead.
- Get its active share against that benchmark. Search the registry by ticker. Under 60% puts the fund in the closet-index range; under 5% means it is tracking.
- Price the match. Find the cheapest index fund tracking the same benchmark. The cheapest index trackers in this registry charge 0.01%, or $10 a year per $100,000.
- Compare the two fees on the same amount. Expense ratios are charged on the whole balance. The gap between them is what the differing part of the portfolio is costing you.
| What you will find | What it means for your fund | Funds |
|---|---|---|
| Closet index | Mostly matches its index and costs more than the cheapest fund tracking it. | 46 |
| Matches but priced like an index fund | Close to its index, but not charging an active price for it. | 2 |
| Index tracker | Tracking by design; the question is only whether it is the cheapest one. | 16 |
| Genuinely active | The portfolio substantially differs; the fee buys real difference. | 56 |
| No answer yet | An input is missing, so we do not publish a comparison for it. | 80 |
If your fund is not in the registry
Most of what we publish comes from N-PORT filings, which are public. You can read the same holdings we do and compare the top positions with the index’s. It is coarser than a position-by-position calculation, but a fund whose ten largest holdings are the index’s ten largest, at similar weights, is not a mystery.
What this does not cover
Of 200 funds in the registry, 120 have every input the comparison needs. The remaining 80 are reported rather than guessed:
- 79 have no positive-fee index fund tracking the same benchmark, so there is nothing to price them against.
- 1 have no filed net expense ratio for their primary share class yet.
A fund in that group is not a fund that passed. It is a fund we cannot yet speak about, and it stays listed until the filing that fixes it arrives.
If the fund is in a workplace plan
A 401(k) lineup is where closet indexing is hardest to escape, because the menu is chosen for you. The check still works: find each equity option’s benchmark, compare its fee with the cheapest fund in the plan tracking the same thing, and see which of the active options are actually differing enough to justify the gap. Plans frequently offer one cheap index fund alongside several more expensive funds that largely resemble it.
If the plan has no cheap tracker at all, the comparison still tells you something, but the remedy is different: the question becomes one for whoever selects the lineup rather than one you can solve by switching funds.
What the comparison cannot tell you
A fee gap is a certainty and a return gap is not. Paying more for a portfolio that largely matches an index is a reliable drag; it does not follow that the cheaper fund will finish ahead over any particular period. The honest version of the finding is narrow: you are paying a known amount for an amount of difference you can measure, and you can now decide whether that trade looks sensible.
What to do with the answer
Nothing here is a recommendation to trade. A closet indexer in a taxable account may cost more to leave than to keep, and in a 401(k) the cheaper option may simply not be offered. The useful outcome is knowing which of the two things you are buying — index exposure, or a genuine attempt to differ — and what each costs.
One practical note on timing. Funds file holdings on their own schedules and report with a lag, so the newest figure for your fund may be a few months old. That is normal and does not make the comparison useless: portfolio structure moves far more slowly than prices, and a fund that matched its index closely last quarter rarely transforms in the next one. What matters is that the date is stated, which it is on every page here.
Next: what counts as low active share, or see the fee-against-difference map.