Earning Dividends with International ETFs

Certain types of investors are always on the lookout for a nice dividend yield in their domestic holdings. Did you know that handsome yields can be found in international ETFs, as well?

International dividend ETFs can provide decent yields and remove the need to do research on foreign stocks. Instead of trying to pick foreign holdings on limited information, there are funds that have pulled together some high-quality, dividend-paying companies that you can hold in a basket, thus spreading out the risk.

Todd Shcriber for Investopedia reports that ETFs that hold high-quality stocks with reliable dividend histories that focused on sectors that are typically viewed as safe dividend bets.

Among the many available are:

• WisdomTree International Utilities (NYSEArca: DBU): yield 9.89%; Utility funds can be a good bet no matter where you are, because there is always a need for the services utilities provide. These companies tend to pay out steady dividends that are predictable.



• WisdomTree International Large Cap Dividend (NYSEArca: DOL): yield 8.04%; This ETF does not focus on one sector, rather it tends toward large, high-quality dividend stocks. It is a thinly traded fund, but has nice performance. Countries ranging from China to Brazil are featured in this ETF, both hot spots.



• iShares S&P Global Telecommunications (NYSEArca: IXP): yield 5%; Telecom stocks are another sure play as they are indispensible and growing. This is not as international a play as the other two funds, as AT&T and Verizon are in the top 10 holdings. Nevertheless, the ETF contains quality names across the world.

Comments

[Nicolas1234:]

I would like to point your attention to the fact that to my understanding the above mentioned yields are all wrong, please check either the WisdomTree website or the iShares. The yields above are even more misleading for the WisdomTree funds have they have switched the distribution schedule from yearly to quarterly, your data provider is using a trailing 12 months to calculate the yield which is misleading and inappropriate in this situation.

Nov 11 04:39 PM

[BGRT:]

I agree with the above, but I want to add that using the trailing 12 mo yield isn't necessarily misleading. The changing yield is something to consider but this is completely expected due to the fact that the FX rates are constantly changing and WisdomTree funds have a higher turnover than say Vanguard funds because they do a bit of quantitative analysis when they rebalance their fund holdings. Having said that though WisdomTree funds would pretty much guarantee you better yields than similar funds from iShares or Vanguard.

Nov 11 05:44 PM

[User 448574:]

The yield for DBU is 3.7374% ($0.83644/ $24.32 share price)according to the screen that came up when I clicked on the "DBU" symbol in your article. Please explain the discrepancy between the reutrn indicated in your article and the information on the DBU screen.
Thank you. Lou Ricker, Philadelphia PA

Nov 12 09:28 AM

[YoYoMama:]

Same for DOL, yield all wrong.


On Nov 12 09:28 AM User 448574 wrote:

> The yield for DBU is 3.7374% ($0.83644/ $24.32 share price)according
> to the screen that came up when I clicked on the "DBU" symbol in
> your article. Please explain the discrepancy between the reutrn
> indicated in your article and the information on the DBU screen.
>
> Thank you. Lou Ricker, Philadelphia PA

Nov 12 09:55 AM

[BGRT:]

The best way to check the yields on these funds is actually to go to the WisdomTree fund sites themselves. They also have a Dividend Yield Analysis link on the left side which is updated daily with the latest figures. Click that link, and you can also see the link to Distributable Income Report on the top of the Analysis page. This tells you the actual dollar amount and dollars (or cents) per share collected so far this quarter by each ETF. Basically WisdomTree gives you a TON of distribution information that Yahoo or SA does not provide so the yield is pretty transparent to everyone.

Nov 13 07:48 PM