COWZ ETF Is Up 14.81% in a Year With Zero Apple Stock
The Pacer US Cash Cows 100 ETF is beating the market without owning Apple — and that tells you something worth knowing.
If someone told you a fund built around America's biggest cash-generating companies holds absolutely no Apple stock, you'd probably do a double take. Apple is practically synonymous with cash flow at this point. Yet that's exactly the situation with the Pacer US Cash Cows 100 ETF (COWZ), and somehow the fund is doing just fine without it — up 14.81% over the past year through July 6 and already 6.4% in the green for 2026.
So what's going on here? COWZ isn't just hunting for companies that *sound* profitable — it screens specifically for free cash flow yield, meaning it wants businesses generating serious cash relative to their stock price. Apple, despite printing money in absolute dollar terms, likely doesn't clear that bar because its valuation is so high that its cash flow yield gets diluted. In other words, you're paying a premium price for Apple's cash, and COWZ isn't interested in overpaying.
Read more Apple Sales Expected to Hold Steady Despite Price Hikes →
This is actually a useful lesson in how ETF methodology shapes everything. Two funds can both claim to target "quality" or "cash flow" companies and end up with completely different portfolios. COWZ is essentially making a valuation-conscious bet — it wants cash cows that are still reasonably priced, not household names trading at nosebleed multiples. The fact that it's outperforming while skipping the most famous company on Earth suggests that discipline is paying off.
For everyday investors, COWZ is worth understanding as an alternative to mega-cap-heavy index funds. If your S&P 500 fund already loads you up with Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia, a fund like COWZ could offer genuine diversification rather than just the illusion of it. The 14.81% one-year return is a real-world data point that "boring" cash flow investing can compete with the glamour stocks — at least over certain stretches of the market.
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