Preferred Funds

Most of the fund industry sells one of two things: a manager’s opinion, or a machine that copies an index. We use neither as our core. The funds we prefer take a third path: systematically structured strategies that capture the returns markets offer, target the dimensions of return that decades of research have identified, and trade with the patience that rigid index replication cannot afford. Two firms define this category, Dimensional Fund Advisors and Avantis Investors, and Cardiff Park is qualified to implement both. Around that core, we use low-cost index funds and ETFs from providers such as Vanguard, Schwab, and Fidelity where broad, simple market exposure is the right tool.

The Research Behind the Funds

The approach is rooted in the work of Eugene Fama of the University of Chicago and Kenneth French of Dartmouth College, whose research reshaped the understanding of how markets price risk and where returns come from. Their findings, tested across decades and markets, identified persistent dimensions of expected return: the market itself, company size, relative price, and profitability. Portfolios built to emphasize these dimensions have higher expected returns than portfolios that ignore them, not because someone outguessed the market, but because the market compensates investors for bearing certain risks. This is not stock picking dressed up in academic language. It is the systematic application of what the evidence says about how returns are generated.

Why Not Just Buy the Index?

Traditional index funds are a fine invention, and we use them. But rigid index tracking has a quiet cost. When an index rebalances, every fund tracking it must trade the same securities on the same day, and the rest of the market knows it. Those forced, predictable trades leak value to whoever stands on the other side. Structured funds are not chained to a reconstitution date. They target an asset class rather than a list, which gives their traders the flexibility to buy and sell when prices are favorable, substitute among similar securities, and decline to trade when conditions are poor. The result is broader diversification, more precise exposure to the dimensions that matter, and lower transaction costs, advantages that compound quietly, year after year.

Dimensional Fund Advisors

Founded in 1981, Dimensional pioneered the translation of academic research into investable portfolios, working directly with the economists whose findings define the field. Its funds are passively managed but systematically structured: broadly diversified, low-turnover, patient in execution, and free of the marketing expenses and 12b-1 fees that burden much of the industry. Dimensional’s trading operation is a core part of the value: price-sensitive, opportunistic, and designed to avoid the hidden costs that rigid schedules impose. Cardiff Park is among a select group of firms qualified to offer Dimensional’s strategies, and we have implemented them for clients for more than two decades.

Avantis Investors

Avantis was founded in 2019 by veterans of Dimensional and applies the same research heritage through a modern, ETF-first structure. The investment logic is the same: diversified portfolios tilted toward size, value, and profitability, implemented with flexible, cost-conscious trading. The ETF wrapper adds practical advantages, including low expense ratios, intraday liquidity, and a tax efficiency that matters greatly in taxable accounts. For certain strategies and account types, Avantis is the sharper tool, and its arrival has been good for investors in another way as well: credible competition inside the systematic category keeps costs falling and execution honest.

How We Choose Between Them

Dimensional and Avantis are complements, not rivals, in our portfolios. The choice for any given allocation turns on the account type, the tax situation, the specific asset class, the available share classes and expense ratios, and how the position fits the client’s existing holdings. In taxable accounts, ETF structures often carry the day. In tax-advantaged accounts, the calculus shifts. Where a simple market-cap index fund from Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity serves the role at lower cost, we use it without hesitation. We hold no allegiance to any fund family, receive nothing from any of them, and owe loyalty only to the evidence and the client.

Why This Is Our Preference

Every fund we recommend must clear the same bar: grounded in peer-reviewed research, broadly diversified, low in cost, disciplined in execution, and free of compensation flowing back to us. Dimensional and Avantis clear it. Our relationships with both are built on shared conviction about how markets work, and on nothing else. There are no hidden incentives and no commissions, only strategies we would, and do, hold ourselves.

Learn More About Us

Cardiff Park Advisors is based in Carlsbad, California, about 25 miles north of San Diego, with an additional office in San Marcos. We work with clients across the United States and internationally. When you’re ready to take the next step, we offer a complimentary consultation. Please complete the Connect Form below, in the footer, and we’ll follow up to schedule a conversation.

To learn more, visit www.cardiffpark.com, review our Form ADV Brochure on the SEC’s website (ADV Part 2A), email us at jgorlow@cardiffpark.com, or call 760-635-7526.