ETFs with the Highest Yields/Lowest P/E Ratios

Many investors like to invest in equity ETFs with high dividend yields to get income while spreading risk across a number of stocks. We recently screened our list of over 500 ETFs to find the ones with the highest yields. Below we highlight our results.

As shown, REM, DFE, TTH, PGF and KRE have the highest 12-month dividend yields of the ETFs we track. Most of the stocks on the list are US equity ETFs, however, there are a number of high-yielding international equity ETFs as well. DFE, EEW, CVY, DNH, EPP, EWI and EWA all track non-US equity indices.

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Investors also like to get their fixed income exposure through ETFs. These fixed income ETFs make their payouts through dividends just like stocks. As shown, LQD, an investment grade corporate bond tracking ETF, has a 12-month yield of 5.39%. LQD is followed by HYG, CFT and AGG.

We also screened our list of ETFs for ones with the lowest P/E ratios. The P/E ratio of the ETF is the average P/E ratio of the ETF's holdings. As shown, most ETFs on the list track Financials. WisdomTree has a Low P/E ETF (EZY), but it ranks 7th on our list. Powershares has a Deep Value ETF (PVM) that has a P/E ratio of 10.70.

Comments

[datalink1995:]

The reason these yields are going up is because the market prices are going down. Does catch a falling knife have any meaning?

2008 Jan 05 10:33 AM

[JohnV:]

Datalink - I am not trying to argue with you, but that isn't always entirely true. For example:

REIT's are legally required to distribute 90% of profits to shareholders.
Some individual companies have shareholder agreements to distribute most of the profits to shareholders (oil transportation sector is a good example of this)

Of course, these aren't ETF's, but I just wanted to pass that on.

2008 Jan 05 02:04 PM

[d_teller:]

UTF has a 12 month yield of 8.+ % ... isn't this an ETF?

2008 Jan 05 08:32 PM

[Wall Street...:]

There is something wrong with your data. BBH does not have a yield of 6.25%. Think about it, there is not a single biotech company that has a yield that high, how could the ETF that tracks biotechs have a yield that is higher than any of the underlying companies?

2008 Jan 05 11:52 PM

[Roger Cuddy:]

BBH had total distributions of around 11 dollars in 07, that's why it's showing such a high yield. Little if any of that was probably from the underlying yields but most databases won't distinguish.

2008 Jan 07 10:25 AM