First Trust United Kingdom AlphaDEX Fund

First Trust United Kingdom AlphaDEX Fund (FKU) is an index ETF that holds about 75 British stocks. Nasdaq's AlphaDEX rules choose and weight them by growth and value scores rather than by company size. Its 0.80% expense ratio is the highest in its group of similar funds, which average 0.28%. With $36.7 million in net assets as of June 30, 2026, it is also the smallest fund in that group.

• Over the year to Oct 27, 2026, FKU returned +16.6%, 1st of 7 among similar funds.
• Its 5-year annualized return was +9.0% and its 10-year +9.5%.
• In the 2020 COVID crash it fell 52.5% and regained its old high 9.7 months after the low.
• Its worst full calendar year was 2022 (-24.1%); its best was 2025 (+38.0%).
• The deepest fall in its price history was 54.4% (Dec 16, 2019 to Mar 18, 2020), recovered by Feb 16, 2021.

As of Jun 30, 2026, the fund held 75 securities; the ten largest made up 24.37% of assets.

• Over the three months to Jun 30, 2026, investors withdrew a net $76.4M (creations minus redemptions, per the N-PORT report).
• Monthly total returns reported for that quarter: +5.89%, +1.64%, -0.67%.

FKU tracks the Nasdaq AlphaDEX United Kingdom Index, which Nasdaq, Inc. owns and maintains. The fund normally keeps at least 90% of its net assets in the index's stocks. The index starts from the Nasdaq United Kingdom Index. Nasdaq assigns companies to the UK mainly by where they are incorporated, based and listed. It then drops duplicate share classes, stocks that are hard to trade and companies at or below the mid-cap breakpoint. That breakpoint was $4.450 billion as of March 31, 2026, though Nasdaq can add smaller companies to reach a minimum number of stocks.

Nasdaq ranks the remaining stocks on growth factors and on value factors, and each stock keeps whichever rank is higher. The top 75 make the cut. They are split into five groups (quintiles), and higher-scoring groups get bigger weights. A market-value-weighted fund works differently, because its largest companies dominate. Each industry can't exceed its weight in the starting index by more than 15 percentage points. Stocks that break the cap move to a lower-weighted group or drop out.

The index is rebalanced and reshuffled twice a year, and the fund trades shortly afterward. As a result, portfolio turnover (the share of holdings replaced in a year) was 65%, according to the prospectus filed April 30, 2026. The fund owns shares directly, and its June 30, 2026 holdings report shows no derivatives. Its stocks trade in foreign currencies, so if the British pound falls against the dollar, returns for US holders go down.

• FKU charges 0.8% a year, versus an average of 0.28% for the similar funds below (7th of 7, cheapest first).

A single-country fund with a 0.80% expense ratio that fell more than 50% in 2020 fits better as a small add-on than as a foundation.

FKU offers concentrated exposure to British companies, with large positions in financial stocks, and that mix can behave differently from a US stock fund. The ride has been rough. The fund fell 52.5% from February 19 to March 18, 2020, and took about 10 months to recover. In the 2022 bear market it dropped 41.1% and needed about 21 months, until July 11, 2024, to get back to its old peak. Its worst calendar year was 2022, when it lost 23.52%. Anyone who had to sell shares during those stretches would have locked in deep losses. The fund launched in 2012, so it has no record from the 2008 crisis.

The fund pays income quarterly, and its trailing 12-month yield was 3.8% as of October 27, 2026. Its 0.80% expense ratio is well above the 0.28% average of similar funds. Past results don't predict future ones, and a plan should look at the whole portfolio, not one fund.

Matched by closest holdings overlap from the latest N-PORT reports (no similar fund shares 20% or more of its holdings).