Dana Pairs Disruptive Growth with Durable Income in Twin ETF Engine

• Equity allocation models built for slower market cycles can delay exposure to industry disruptors and limit potential gains.
• Structural rules, not stock or fund selection, undermine legacy allocation models.
• Advisors need an allocation approach that allows them to own emerging disruptors while still seeking to deliver durable income.
• Dana Investment Advisors has wrapped two long-running SMA strategies as ETFs to create a new allocation model that expands access.
• The DUNK-DIVE twin engine aims to balance disruptive growth potential with durable income in one clean, flexible system.
• Strategies behind the DUNK and DIVE ETFs have been tested in live markets through multiple cycles.
• Dana seeks to mitigate risk through strict portfolio controls, including position-size caps, cash flexibility, and frequent thesis reviews.

Industry disruptors, such as a few of the Big Tech names leading the S&P 500 Index, have delivered outstanding equity returns in the past decade. But advisors often capture only a fraction of those gains because their allocation models keep them from backing these businesses early.

Those models were designed for a time when industries evolved more slowly, market leaders were rarely challenged, and sector lines were clearer. Rules like owning every sector, avoiding cyclicals, keeping turnover low, and buying and holding only blue chips made sense then. Not anymore.

Today, advisors need a more effective way to diversify that allows them to own emerging disruptors while seeking to deliver durable income. That’s the challenge Dana Investment Advisors set out to solve.

Structural flaws undermine legacy allocation models

What undermines many conventional allocation models is their structure, not their choice of stocks or funds.

These outdated models can weaken income as well as growth, especially if portfolios are concentrated in utilities, telecoms, and staples that turn out to be underperforming businesses with weak balance sheets and unreliable returns.

The most damaging effect of legacy allocation models is that they force advisors to trade off growth opportunities against the prospect of potential income. Exposure to emerging disruptors is cut back to accommodate holdings in mature dividend payers. The result is often a mix of benchmark-hugging growth funds, with little exposure to rising disruptors, and income products concentrated in lackluster companies with weak fundamentals.

Portfolios built this way are vulnerable to long-term underperformance. They risk missing out on the next generation of market leaders and are exposed to avoidable drawdowns and sudden dividend cuts. Those risks show up in missed benchmarks and difficult review meetings. Tweaking allocations or tickers can’t overcome the structural weaknesses of legacy allocation models.

Dana’s model seeks to capture growth and income

Once the flaws underlying legacy models become clear, a better alternative is easy to see. At Dana, we’ve built an allocation model that captures the growth potential of rising disruptors while also aiming to provide durable income. We created two ETFs that wrap long-running SMA strategies with established track records. One is a high conviction disruption portfolio. The other is a quality dividend portfolio. Together, they let growth and income work in a single equity allocation.

“It’s built for an environment defined by rapid disruption, a widening gap between winners and losers, and the need for agility. And it’s meant to give active management a fighting chance in a market where the old playbook just isn’t good enough,” says David Weinstein, Senior Vice President and Lead Portfolio Manager of the Dana Unconstrained Equity Strategy.

The Dana Unconstrained Equity ETF (DUNK) removes constraints around sectors, style boxes, and turnover. It gives advisors the flexibility to stay aligned with fast-moving disruptive trends, quickly build positions in high-conviction stocks, and exit when the thesis breaks instead of being locked into slow, rules-based legacy rebalancing.

The Concentrated Dividend ETF (DIVE) seeks to avoid weak businesses that might be unreliable dividend payers by focusing strictly on balance sheet strength, valuation, and sustainable income.

“We wanted a dividend strategy built for total return, something that had the quality and the durability that dividend investors want, but also the growth engine that many traditional dividend portfolios lack,” adds Mike Alkhazov, Senior Vice President and Lead Portfolio Manager of the Dana Concentrated Dividend Equity Strategy.

When paired, the DUNK and DIVE ETFs form a twin engine that turns equity allocation into a single clean, flexible growth and income system. Clients can easily align it to their objectives by adjusting the ratios between DUNK and DIVE and tilting toward growth or income. It gives advisors and sophisticated retail investors broader access across sectors without the need to switch funds or platforms.

The DUNK-DIVE twin engine keeps allocation clear

Advisors are used to matching growth and income products but usually have to contend with a patchwork of different SMAs and funds. By contrast, the DUNK-DIVE engine combines two strategies designed to work together. They are managed by the same team, using the same research stack, and the same investment process.

Dana seeks to mitigate risk in its unconstrained and concentrated strategies through strict portfolio controls, including position-size caps, cash flexibility, and frequent thesis reviews. The DUNK unconstrained equity ETF holds 15 to 30 mostly U.S. large caps, limits any single position to 15%, and can hold up to 20% in cash to buffer market uncertainty. Similarly, the DIVE concentrated dividend ETF holds 25 to 35 mainly U.S. large and upper mid-cap stocks that meet tests on balance sheet strength, valuation, and commitment to returning capital through dividends or buybacks.

Pairing DUNK and DIVE in a single twin engine avoids the conventional tradeoff between growth and income, reduces reliance on complex mixes of funds and SMAs, and limits value loss from frequent portfolio adjustments. Both strategies have been managed through real market cycles under a consistent, documented process. The ETF structure provides transparency on holdings and weightings, so advisors can monitor positions directly and give clients and committees clear, up-to-date reports.

How advisors can put the DUNK-DIVE twin engine to work

Moving from legacy allocation models to the DUNK-DIVE equity engine is straightforward. Both ETFs trade on major brokerages such as Schwab and Fidelity, retail platforms like Robinhood, and through some broker-dealers. They are currently trading at around $25 a share (December 2025) and are also available as fractional shares. Such access gives advisors the opportunity to start small by migrating part of their portfolio to the DUNK-DIVE equity engine. Once they are comfortable with how the engine operates, they can step up their allocation.

Since their launch in September 2025, the DUNK Unconstrained Equity ETF has already attracted investment of around $140 million while the DIVE Concentrated Dividend ETF has drawn over $40 million.

“We chose these two strategies for the ETF wrapper because they access different parts of the market and work well together,” says David Weinstein. “In ETF form, they make it easier for advisors to build and adjust equity allocations across accounts.”

Legacy allocation models were built for a market where disruption was rare and dividend income came from a narrow set of sectors. The DUNK and DIVE ETFs are built for today’s market where new leaders emerge quickly yet clients still expect resilient income. When paired as the DUNK-DIVE twin engine, they give advisors a clean and convenient way to participate in the next generation of market disruptors while aiming to maintain a disciplined, diversified source of dividends for clients.

The S&P 500® Index is an unmanaged, market capitalization–weighted index of 500 leading publicly traded U.S. companies and is widely regarded as a representative measure of overall U.S. equity market performance. The index includes companies from a broad range of industries and sectors.

The Russell 1000® Value Index is an unmanaged index that measures the performance of the large- and mid-cap value segment of the U.S. equity market. It includes companies from the Russell 1000® Index that are identified as value stocks based on lower price-to-book ratios and other value-oriented characteristics. Indexes are not available for direct investment, and index performance does not reflect the deduction of management fees, transaction costs, or other expenses. Past performance of the index is not indicative of future results.

For DUNK and DIVE top ten holdings, please visit https://danaetfs.com/dunk/ and https://danaetfs.com/dive/.

Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. For a prospectus or summary prospectus with this and other information about the Fund, please call (866) 991-5811 or visit our website at WWW.DANAETFS.COM. Read the prospectus or summary prospectus carefully before investing.

Investing involves risk. Principal loss is possible.

Important Information for DUNK & DIVE:

New Fund Risk. The Fund is a recently organized management investment company with no operating history. As a result, prospective investors do not have a track record or history on which to base their investment decisions.

Foreign Securities Risk. Foreign securities held by the Fund involve certain risks not involved in domestic investments and may experience more rapid and extreme changes in value than investments in securities of U.S. companies.

Non-Diversification Risk. Because the Fund is “non-diversified,” it may invest a greater percentage of its assets in the securities of a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers than if it was a diversified fund.

Important Information for DIVE:

Models and Data Risk. The Sub-Adviser’s evaluation of potential Fund portfolio holdings is heavily dependent on proprietary supplied by third parties (Models and Data).

Important Information for DUNK:

Emerging Markets Risk. The Fund may invest in securities issued by companies domiciled or headquartered in emerging market
nations.

High Portfolio Turnover Risk. The Fund may actively and frequently trade all or a significant portion of the securities in its portfolio.

Important Information for Dana:

Fixed Income Risk. The prices of fixed income securities respond to economic developments, particularly interest rate changes, as well as to changes in an issuer’s credit rating or market perceptions about the creditworthiness of an issuer.

Low Volatility Investing Risks. The Fund invests in bonds selected for their historically low volatility, but there is no guarantee these securities will maintain stable performance or meet return objectives.

Variable and Floating Rate Bonds Risk. Variable and floating rate bonds are subject to credit risk, market risk and interest rate risk. In addition, the absence of an active market for these securities could make it difficult for the Fund to dispose of them if the issuer defaults.

Low Volatility Investing Risks. The Fund invests in bonds selected for their historically low volatility, but there is no guarantee these securities will maintain stable performance or meet return objectives.

Distributed by Foreside Fund Services, LLC