ESN
Essential 40 Stock ETF
NORTHERN LIGHTS FUND TRUST II
ETF
Expense ratio1
0.70%
Net assets2
$223.84M
Holdings2
41
Category
US Equity
2025 return3
16.31%

Investment objective & strategy

As of Sept. 24, 2025 · prospectus

Objective. The primary investment objective of the Essential 40 Stock ETF (the ?Fund?) is to seek to track, before fees and expenses, the performance of the Essential 40 Stock Index.

Strategy. The Fund is an actively-managed exchange-traded fund (?ETF?) that normally invests at least 80% of its net assets (plus any borrowings for investment purposes) in the common stocks of companies that comprise the Essential 40 Stock Index (the ?Index?), which measures the investment return of the equity securities of forty blue-chip U.S companies. Generally, the Adviser anticipates that the Fund will hold all forty of the securities that comprise the Index in proportion to their weightings in the Index. Under certain circumstances, however, the Fund may purchase a sample of securities in the Index if it is not possible or practicable to replicate the Index. There also may be instances in which the Adviser may choose to underweight or overweight … The Fund is an actively-managed exchange-traded fund (?ETF?) that normally invests at least 80% of its net assets (plus any borrowings for investment purposes) in the common stocks of companies that comprise the Essential 40 Stock Index (the ?Index?), which measures the investment return of the equity securities of forty blue-chip U.S companies. Generally, the Adviser anticipates that the Fund will hold all forty of the securities that comprise the Index in proportion to their weightings in the Index. Under certain circumstances, however, the Fund may purchase a sample of securities in the Index if it is not possible or practicable to replicate the Index. There also may be instances in which the Adviser may choose to underweight or overweight a security in the Index, purchase securities not in the Index that the Adviser believes are appropriate to substitute for certain securities in the Index, or utilize various combinations of other available investment techniques. The circumstances that would cause the Adviser to hold a representative sampling of the Index include, but are not limited to, the following circumstances: the Fund may sell securities that are represented in the Index in anticipation of their removal from the Index; the Fund may purchase securities not represented in the Index in anticipation of their addition to the Index; or there may be corporate actions resulting in a cash take-over or bankruptcy which are examples of events that would cause the Adviser to sell a security. The Fund may also temporarily invest in securities not included in the Index that are expected to be correlated with the securities included in the Index. To manage risk, the Fund may also invest in S&P 500 futures and options when the Adviser determines that such investments would benefit the Fund. The Fund will normally limit its investment in S&P 500 futures and options to 5% or less of its net assets, although it can invest up to 20% of its net assets in such instruments. Given the Fund?s investment objective of attempting to track the Index, the Fund does not follow traditional methods of active investment management, which may involve buying and selling securities based upon analysis of economic and market factors. The Adviser, however, reserves the ability to underweight or overweight stocks in the Index or to utilize S&P 500 futures or options to manage risk as it deems necessary. The Index is an index created by FSH Trading, LLC (?FSH?) and is calculated and distributed by Solactive AG. The Index is an index of companies providing goods and services that are, in the view of FSH, essential to the American economy and way of life. The Index has 40 components that are selected by a committee within FSH, using a qualitative approach to determine which companies, in the view of the committee, are irreplaceable and too essential to fail. At its inception on December 31, 2013, the Index was constructed as equally weighted, and the component weightings fluctuate going forward based on return performance alone. The Index, however, is rebalanced annually on the second calendar Monday of January. In the event that the NYSE, NASDAQ or AMEX are closed on that day, rebalancing occurs on the following business day. Each component of the Index is weighted equally at 2.5% when rebalanced but again may fluctuate as a result of individual stock performance until it is rebalanced again. The committee seeks to have the Index diversified across sectors and industries and seeks only to make changes to the Index components as the American economy evolves or market events and corporate actions necessitate.

Top holdings

As of Feb. 28, 2026 · N-PORT
SecurityTickerValue% of fund
VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC $6.67M 2.98%
FEDEX CORP $6.65M 2.97%
SYSCO CORP $6.51M 2.91%
EXXON MOBIL CORP $6.46M 2.89%
NUTRIEN LTD $6.41M 2.86%
CME GROUP INC CL A $6.35M 2.84%
JOHNSON&JOHNSON $6.27M 2.80%
FREEPORT MCMORAN INC $6.27M 2.80%
LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP $6.23M 2.78%
NEWMONT CORP $6.20M 2.77%
View all holdings →

Allocation by sector

As of February 28, 2026 · N-PORT
View portfolio breakdown →

Portfolio moves

Nov 30, 2025 → Feb 28, 2026
Opened
1
Exited
1
Increased
32
Decreased
8
Unchanged
0

How many positions this fund opened, exited, grew, trimmed, or left unchanged between its two most recent N-PORT snapshots — net changes between point-in-time reports, not a trade log.

View portfolio moves →

Similar funds

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Advisers

As of May 31, 2025 · N-CEN
FirmRole
KKM Financial, LLC Adviser

Footnotes

  1. Expense ratio as of September 24, 2025, from the fund's prospectus.
  2. Net assets and holdings count as of February 28, 2026, from the fund's N-PORT filing.
  3. Total return for calendar year 2025, before tax and after fund expenses. Computed by compounding the twelve monthly total returns the fund reported in its SEC N-PORT filings for 2025 (the latest prospectus does not yet chart this year).

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