“ESG is a good way to identify hidden risks in companies. We’re particularly looking for sustainability in governance,” said Ahlsten. “We want to avoid companies that aren’t ethically competing in the marketplace.”

According to Morningstar, PRBLX had gained 8.16 percent year to date as of Aug. 3, compared to 7.4 percent for the S&P 500. In the decade ending Aug. 3, PRBLX posted 10.79 percent average annualized returns, compared to 10.82 percent for the S&P 500.

PRBLX has an expense ratio of 87 basis points.

On the other side of the spectrum are passive solutions to avoiding the FANG trade. While a number of ETFs offer alternative indexes by using smart beta factors or by limiting the fund’s selection set to a niche, other funds simply reweight the market index. Guggenheim was the first to do this by equal-weighting the market with RSP, now the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF. Now, Exponential ETFs has taken the idea a step further with its Reverse Cap Weighted U.S. Large Cap ETF (RVRS).

“I was a manager on the equal-weight ETF,” said Bak. “It was one of my favorite strategies because it was so simple, and I like to pull things back to simplicity and the basics of what they really are. The reason equal weight outperformed is that it gives investors a lower-than-average market capitalization, so they get the small-cap premium, and on portfolio rebalance it’s profit-taking.”

Bak argues that market-cap weighting grew because it is essentially liquidity weighted and costs very little to rebalance. However, in recent years trading costs have declined to the point where market-cap weighting no longer confers as much benefit as it once did.

RVRS takes the S&P 500 and stands it on its head—literally. The largest components of the S&P 500, including the FANGs, receive the lowest allocation, while the smallest constituents receive the highest.

The result, said Bak, is an ETF that should tend to outperform the normal S&P 500 over time, but with slightly more volatility.

“Historically, there’s approximately 2 percent alpha per year generated by using equal weighting versus market-cap weighting,” said Bak. “By the same logic, there’s about a two-percent alpha for reverse cap weighting over equal weighting. Equal weighting large-cap equities is just a half measure. You can take the idea farther.”

Launched late last year, RVRS has posted a 4.5 percent total return through Aug. 3, compared to a 7.4 percent return for the cap-weighted S&P 500.