Dividend-focused Equity ETFs Becoming More Popular (ETFs: DVY, PEY, SDY)

John Spence of MarketWatch has a nice overview of equity income ETFs, noting that

investors are rediscovering the allure of dividends for a number of reasons: the outlook for stock appreciation is modest, bond yields are low and baby boomers are searching for income... Although the indexes, not surprisingly, tend to have heavy stakes in traditional income-producing sectors such as financials and utilities (but don't include real-estate stocks), each has its own wrinkles.

Here are the five ETFs reviewed by Spence -- click on the symbol for more articles on that ETF:

● iShares Dow Jones Select Dividend Index ETF (DVY): 'the oldest and largest of the dividend ETFs in this emerging group'
● PowerShares High Yield Equity Dividend Achievers (PEY): 'invests in the highest-yielding companies that have hiked dividends for at least 10 straight years'
● PowerShares Dividend Achievers (PFM): 'a broader version [of PEY] holding 312 stocks'
● PowerShares High Growth Rate Dividend Achievers (PHJ): 'tracks the 100 U.S. stocks with the fastest dividend-growth rates over the past decade'
● SPDR Dividend (SDY): 'designed to measure the performance of the 50 highest-yielding U.S. stocks that have consistently raised dividends for at least 25 years'