GRID's 60% industrial weighting, led by Eaton and ABB at roughly 8% each, has driven a 34% one-year return that broad utility ETFs cannot match.
Quanta Services, just a 4% position, returned 73% over the past year and did more to lift the fund than any of its anchor holdings.
With a beta of 1.26, a 0.8% yield, and a negative dividend growth rate, GRID is a growth bet on grid modernization, not an income play.
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The First Trust NASDAQ Clean Edge Smart Grid Infrastructure Index Fund (NASDAQ:GRID) sits at an unusual intersection: it is an infrastructure fund that also captures the industrial equipment vendors selling into the AI power buildout. The 0.56% expense ratio is either a fair toll for that access or cheaper broad industrial and utility funds cover the same ground for less.
The First Trust NASDAQ Clean Edge Smart Grid Infrastructure Index Fund has become a large fund on the strength of that positioning, with 128 holdings and roughly $7.65 billion in net assets reported in its March filing. This fund tracks a smart-grid index built by Clean Edge, and its portfolio leans heavily toward electrical equipment makers, transmission operators, and installation contractors rather than pure utilities or clean-tech names.
The portfolio is built around industrial equipment makers rather than utilities. Industrials account for 60% of the fund, utilities 18%, and technology 16%. That mix is the core of the investment case. Buyers of GRID are paying for the companies that manufacture switchgear, transformers, cables, and building controls, plus the contractors that install them, with utilities as a secondary layer.
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Concentration is meaningful. The top ten holdings represent 59% of assets, and the top five positions alone come to 41%. Eaton is the single largest position at 8%, followed by Johnson Controls at 8%, National Grid at 8%, ABB at 8%, and Schneider Electric at 7%. Quanta Services sits at 4%, which is high for a services contractor and reflects the index's tilt toward companies with direct exposure to transmission buildout backlogs.
Beyond the marquee names, the fund reaches into semiconductor and software companies tied to grid modernization. NVIDIA appears at 2%, alongside other technology names at smaller weights. That is a design choice by the index: the smart in Smart Grid Infrastructure is meant to capture the chips and software layer, not just the copper and steel.
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