Manzil Russell Halal USA Broad Market ETF

Aiming to offer Islamic equity investment options with exposure to lesser-viewed counters on US capital markets, the Manzil Russell Halal USA Broad Market ETF adopts a passive management or indexing strategy that relies on ethical filters to do the heavy lifting.

Manzil Investment Advisors Investments and USA Operations Head Khurram Agha told IFN Investor the ETF was developed to “avoid the large-cap concentration often found in Islamic equity products while providing diversified, Shariah compliant exposure to US-listed equities”.

“We also apply an ethical overlay, such as the American Friends Service Committee, which excludes companies associated with human rights concerns, conflict-related activities or other issues of controversy. After these filters, the final investable universe consists of roughly 450 securities.”

Tracking the Russell IdealRatings Manzil Halal USA Broad Market Custom Index, this ETF is expected to have significant exposure to the technology sector following its trading debut on the US market on the 19^th November 2025.

Even so, the dual screening methodology applied and reviewed on a quarterly basis excludes several tech names like NVIDIA, Google and Microsoft – corporates with services which have been either seen to be abused by or linked to various warring regimes.

Khurram is the portfolio manager responsible for the fund’s day-to-day management. Empowered Funds, operating as ETF Architect, is the investment adviser and Manzil Investment Advisors is the sub-adviser.

This multiple-responsibility approach allows flexible shifting from a “replication” to a “representative sampling” strategy – where risk, return and other characteristics of counters invested closely resemble the index as a whole, explained Khurram. This results in an expense ratio lower than most peer Shariah ETFs, reflecting an effort to remain cost-competitive despite the additional compliance layers involved.

Further, this is a non-diversified fund that may invest a larger percentage of its assets in the securities of a single company – where concentration of investments should approximate the same constituent extent as the benchmark index.

Up to 20% of assets may be allocated to Shariah compliant cash equivalents or non-index securities, including Sukuk and illiquid securities, to facilitate more efficient tracking of related corporate actions.

*Disclaimer: The opinions and viewpoints expressed in the Fund Profile do not constitute as recommendations for any fund highlighted. The information presented is not investment advice and should not be treated as such.