Designed to provide broad exposure to the Consumer Discretionary - Retail segment of the equity market, the VanEck Retail ETF (RTH Quick QuoteRTH - Free Report) is a passively managed exchange traded fund launched on December 20, 2011.

Retail and institutional investors increasingly turn to passively managed ETFs because they offer low costs, transparency, flexibility, and tax efficiency; these kind of funds are also excellent vehicles for long term investors.

Sector ETFs are also funds of convenience, offering many ways to gain low risk and diversified exposure to a broad group of companies in particular sectors. Consumer Discretionary - Retail is one of the 16 broad Zacks sectors within the Zacks Industry classification. It is currently ranked 3, placing it in top 19%.

Index Details

The fund is sponsored by Van Eck. It has amassed assets over $265.84 million, making it one of the average sized ETFs attempting to match the performance of the Consumer Discretionary - Retail segment of the equity market. RTH seeks to match the performance of the MVIS US Listed Retail 25 Index before fees and expenses.

The MVIS US Listed Retail 25 Index tracks the overall performance of companies involved in retail distribution, wholesalers, on-line, direct mail and TV retailers, multi-line retailers, specialty retailers and food and other staples retailers.

Costs

Expense ratios are an important factor in the return of an ETF and in the long term, cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive counterparts, other things remaining the same.

Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.35%, making it one of the cheaper products in the space.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

While ETFs offer diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk, a deep look into a fund's holdings is a valuable exercise. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

This ETF has heaviest allocation in the Consumer Discretionary sector -- about 53.4% of the portfolio. Consumer Staples and Healthcare round out the top three.

Looking at individual holdings, Amazon.com Inc (AMZN) accounts for about 17.31% of total assets, followed by Walmart Inc (WMT) and Costco Wholesale Corp (COST).

The top 10 holdings account for about 71.08% of total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

Year-to-date, the VanEck Retail ETF return is roughly 7.33% so far, and is up about 23.86% over the last 12 months (as of 04/22/2026). RTH has traded between $222.645 and $268.715 in this past 52-week period.

The ETF has a beta of 0.89 and standard deviation of 13.55% for the trailing three-year period, making it a medium risk choice in the space. With about 27 holdings, it has more concentrated exposure than peers.

Alternatives

VanEck Retail ETF sports a Zacks ETF Rank of 4 (Sell), which is based on expected asset class return, expense ratio, and momentum, among other factors. RTH, then, is not a great choice for investors seeking exposure to the Consumer Discretionary ETFs segment of the market. Instead, there are better ETFs in the space to consider.

Amplify Online Retail ETF (IBUY) tracks EQM Online Retail Index and the State Street SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) tracks S&P Retail Select Industry Index. Amplify Online Retail ETF has $123.73 million in assets, State Street SPDR S&P Retail ETF has $465.45 million. IBUY has an expense ratio of 0.65%, and XRT charges 0.35%.

Bottom Line

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