First Trust Smith Unconstrained Bond ETF
First Trust Exchange-Traded Fund VIII · 1 share class
Fund classification
Classified from what the fund holds · as of 2026 Q2
First Trust Smith Unconstrained Bond ETF is an actively managed U.S. bond ETF.
- Asset class
- Bonds
- Region
- United States
- Management
- Actively managed
- Fund type
- ETF
- Credit quality
- Mixed credit
- Rate sensitivity
- Intermediate duration
Fund profile
As filed in the prospectus · 2025 Q4
The investment objective of the First Trust Smith Unconstrained Bond ETF (the Fund ) is to seek to maximize long-term total return.
The fund is managed by sub-advisor Smith Capital Investors on an unconstrained basis, with no requirement to track an index; Smith Capital applies bottom-up credit analysis informed by top-down macroeconomic views to select from a broad universe of fixed income securities including government bonds, corporates, mortgage and asset-backed securities, bank loans, and high-yield bonds, with discretion to hold up to 70% in high-yield securities, up to 25% in emerging market issuers, and to vary average portfolio duration between 0 and 10 years. Because the fund's returns depend on Smith Capital's security selection and macroeconomic positioning decisions rather than a defined benchmark, performance will diverge from any particular index or peer group. The fund may invest up to 50% of assets in non-agency mortgage and asset-backed securities and CLOs.
| Share class | Expense ratio |
|---|---|
| UCON | 0.86% |
Portfolio turnover 305.00% · as of 2025 Q4
Allocation
Asset groups · long / short shown separately, never netted · 2026 Q2
| Bonds | 82.20% |
| Securitized | 13.70% |
| Loans | 2.17% |
| Cash & short-term | 0.65% |
| Stocks | 0.57% |
Sector allocation
The same holdings as Allocation above, grouped by market sector instead of asset type · as of 2026 Q2
| Other | 25.5% |
| Financials | 16.4% |
| Securitized | 13.8% |
| Government | 11.3% |
| 12 smaller | 33.0% |
Government, Securitized and Cash are non-corporate buckets; International is foreign holdings we don’t sector-classify, and Other is the residual (held funds, unresolved names).
Latest quarter
What changed since the fund's previous filing
Largest new: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - BUREAU OF THE PUBLIC DEBT ×4, Federal National Mortgage Association, AUGUSTA SPINCO CORP, KENNEDY-WILSON INC, NEXSTAR MEDIA GROUP INC
Largest exited: United States Treasury Notes ×7, FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION
Return profile
Total return as filed — price change plus distributions reinvested · trailing figures to Apr 2026
May 2026 has been filed since the trailing figures were struck, so it is not in the table above or the curve — every figure here shares one cut-off, which is what makes them comparable with other funds.
Debt profile
What this fund holds — value-weighted across its bond and securitized long positions · as of 2026-05-31
Share of the fund's debt by how its coupon behaves — the fact that decides whether a rate move reaches this portfolio at all.
| Fixed rate | 94.1% |
| Floating rate | 4.6% |
| Zero-coupon or unclassified | 1.2% |
Share of the fund's debt value in each maturity band, shortest first.
| <1y | 0.7% |
| 1-3y | 16.4% |
| 3-5y | 22.4% |
| 5-10y | 28.9% |
| 10y+ | 27.3% |
| Unknown | 4.3% |
Based on what filers reported; a filer that never reported a flag also reads as none.
Risk profile
Interest-rate and credit-spread sensitivity, both in years · as of 2026Q2
Most of this fund’s sensitivity is to interest rates, with credit spreads carrying nearly as much.
Where the loss would come from. The two shocks are the same size, so this is the balance of the fund's two sensitivities rather than a bet on one moving more.
| Interest rates | 55% |
| Credit spreads | 45% |
Filers report the impact of a 0.01% move only, so the total is our own scaling of that one number and overstates the loss on most bonds — read it as approximate, never as precise. The two sensitivities overlap rather than add up: they measure the same positions against different shocks, which is why the durations above are shown side by side and never summed.
Share of the fund's spread duration carried by each credit tier.
| Investment grade | +2.72 yr |
| High yield | +0.88 yr |
Share of duration at each point, shortest first. A positive figure loses value when spreads widen; a negative one offsets — a credit hedge.
| 3 mo | 0.03 yr | 1% |
| 1 yr | 0.62 yr | 14% |
| 5 yr | 1.66 yr | 37% |
| 10 yr | 1.51 yr | 34% |
| 30 yr | 0.61 yr | 14% |
| 3 mo | 0.02 yr | 0% |
| 1 yr | 0.64 yr | 18% |
| 5 yr | 2.14 yr | 60% |
| 10 yr | 0.76 yr | 21% |
| 30 yr | 0.04 yr | 1% |
The two bands measure the same positions against different shocks and do not add — a Treasury carries rate duration and no spread duration, a floating-rate credit the reverse. Rate tenors are also summed across every currency the fund discloses.
Show the numbers
| Tenor | Rate yrs | IG yrs | HY yrs | IG $/bp | HY $/bp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | +0.03 | +0.01 | +0.01 | $1.9k | $3.1k |
| 1 yr | +0.62 | +0.35 | +0.29 | $114.4k | $96.1k |
| 5 yr | +1.66 | +1.60 | +0.54 | $524.8k | $176.8k |
| 10 yr | +1.51 | +0.72 | +0.03 | $237.4k | $10.6k |
| 30 yr | +0.61 | +0.04 | +0.00 | $12.4k | $389 |
Dollar change per 1bp of spread movement, as filed and sign-anchored. A blank cell was not filed; a zero was.
Holdings
By % of NAV · equity positions carry filed share counts · every resolvable issuer links to its company page
| Ticker | Issuer | %NAV | Value | Shares |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - BUREAU OF THE PUBLIC DEBT3.38% · due 2028-02-29 | 2.33% | $76.26M | — |
| — | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - BUREAU OF THE PUBLIC DEBT4.63% · due 2045-11-15 | 2.13% | $69.77M | — |
| — | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - BUREAU OF THE PUBLIC DEBT4.75% · due 2056-02-15 | 2.12% | $69.33M | — |
| — | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - BUREAU OF THE PUBLIC DEBT4.38% · due 2036-05-15 | 1.69% | $55.40M | — |
| — | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - BUREAU OF THE PUBLIC DEBT3.88% · due 2031-04-30 | 1.18% | $38.74M | — |
| — | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - BUREAU OF THE PUBLIC DEBT4.63% · due 2055-11-15 | 1.04% | $33.99M | — |
| — | Federal National Mortgage Association4.00% · due 2064-06-01 | 0.96% | $31.38M | — |
| — | BOEING COMPANY (THE)7.01% · due 2064-05-01 | 0.81% | $26.44M | — |
| — | FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION4.96% floating · due 2054-11-25 | 0.73% | $24.03M | — |
| — | ALBERTSONS COMPANIES INC / SAFEWAY INC / NEW ALBERTSONS LP / ALBERTSONS LLC6.50% · due 2028-02-15 | 0.71% | $23.28M | — |
Top 10 positions are 13.69% of net assets, top 25 22.18%, across 280 issuers.
See more of this fund's book
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