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Friday, May 24, 12:45 PM Multi-asset income ETFs are here to stay, writes Paul Britt, as Guggenheim's CVY crosses $1B in AUM. It's been around since 2006, but a new entrant, MDIV has pulled in $440M in less than a year. These income funds have no mandate in their search for yield and roam across dividends (DVY), high-yield (HYG), REITs (IYR, VNQ), and MLPs (AMJ) as necessary. One drawback is their somewhat high expense ratios - in the 60-80 bp range, compared, for example, to DVY at 40 bps. Other M-A ETFs: INKM, IYLD, GYLD, HGI. 2 Comments
Tuesday, May 21, 3:55 PM WisdomTree (WETF) plans a Wednesday launch for its U.S. Dividend Growth Fund (DGRW) - tracking a fundamentally-weighted index of about 300 dividend payers with annual cost of 0.28%. Among the eligibility requirements: Regular dividends for 12 consecutive months and market cap of at least $2B. Individual security weighting is capped at 5%, with sector allocation capped at 20%. Among the large selection of other dividend funds: VIG, PFM, DHS, DTN. More here. Comment! [Financials]
Tuesday, May 21, 5:40 AM Goldman Sachs lifts its forecasts for the S&P 500 (SPY), as David Kostin and company now say they expect the index to gain 5% by year-end to 1,750, 9% to 1,900 in 2014, and 10% to 2,100 in 2015. The rationale: expectations of above-trend real GDP growth beginning next year (Mr. Evans' "escape velocity" ?) coupled with P/E multiple expansion to 16x. Furthermore, dividends should rise ~30% over the next two years, bolstering the firm's claim that dividend-paying equities (DVY) are one of the only places U.S. investors can look to for income-generation. Some of GS's dividend picks, as listed on MarketWatch: Mattel (MAT), Ford (F), Philip Morris (PM), Walgreen (WAG), Chevron (CVX), U.S. Bancorp (USB), GE, Western Union (WU), Dow Chemical (DOW), and AT&T (T). 11 Comments
Tuesday, May 14, 12:54 PM The Cambria Shareholder Yield ETF (SYLD) launches - an actively managed fund led by The Ivy Portfolio author Mebane Faber. Income's nice, but don't focus too much on dividends, says Faber, who also adds in share buybacks and debt repayment to create "shareholder yield." Competing dividend ETFs include: VIG, DVY, SDY, VIG, HDV, and DLN. 1 Comment
Monday, April 29, 12:13 PM "Which has a higher P/E - Procter & Gamble (PG) or Google (GOOG)," asks the WSJ's Tom Lauricella. Enthusiasm for anything with yield has driven the P-E ratios of dividend payers (DVY) like P&G maybe way too high. Techs (XLK) with double-digit earnings growth, no debt, and massive cash balances trade at 12x, says MFS' James Swanson, while a utility (XLU) in Ohio is at 16x. "How far do you go with this game?" "Pretty far," says Templeton's Donald Taylor. "The macro environment (causing this) is not at all likely to change anytime soon." 7 Comments [Quick Ideas]
Tuesday, February 19, 9:49 PM All of the slide presentations from IU"s InsideETFs conference are now available. One of interest shows how eligibility requirements on certain dividend indexes will keep out stalwarts like MSFT, IBM, ORCL, INTC, CSCO, and AAPL for years to come even as the same stocks account for significant holdings of other indexes with the name dividend on them. 1 Comment
Monday, January 7, 11:33 AM More on dividend increases: In 2012, 2,883 firms increased their dividends, against 275 lowering their dividends. Forward yield hit an all-time high and actual cash payments increased 18% in 2012. The yield increased throughout 2012 ending flat at 2.80%. The report expects 2013 to be setting another record for regular cash dividends. Comment!
Monday, January 7, 11:16 AM Net dividend increases totaled $8.4B in Q4, according to S&P. 1,262 firms increased their dividends, up 94.5% Y/Y, vs. just 154 lowering. Of more import, the payout ratio remains at 36% against long-term average of 52%. 1 Comment [Dividends]
Monday, December 17, 2012, 3:54 PM Dividend players have 3 new ETFs to choose from with Northern Trust's FlexShares unit launching 3 self-indexed funds (QDF, QDEF, QDYN). The difference between the three will be in their volatility relative to the base index. Comment! [Quick Ideas]
Thursday, December 13, 2012, 9:08 AM The envelope please ... The winner of the ETP of the year is Invesco's PowerShares S&P 500 Low Volatility Portfolio (SPLV). The trend-setting product has generated a good deal of alpha - total return of 18.3% since May 2011 inception vs. S&P of 9.9% - by holding the lowest volatility stocks. It now has more than $3B in AUM. 1 Comment [Quick Ideas]
Friday, December 7, 2012, 3:05 PM Strubel Investment notes the horrid record of managements using cash for buybacks or M&A. Buybacks are simple - companies tend to do them when the share price is high (JPMorgan a classic example: It suspended purchases after the CIO loss with the stock near $30, and will rev them up again next year in the 40's). The top tax rates for dividends would have to rise to 70-80% to make them less valuable than the alternatives. 4 Comments [Quick Ideas]
Tuesday, December 4, 2012, 5:11 PM Dividend stocks are not a crowded traded, argues Bahl & Gaynor's Matt McCormick (full presentation), seeing little correlation over the decades between tax rates and returns. Of note were dividend payers underperforming the rest of the market by 52.5% in 2003 after dividend tax rates were cut. 1 Comment [Quick Ideas]
Wednesday, November 28, 2012, 11:25 AM Why does high-yield in reference to bonds signal greater risk to investors, but high-dividend yield in reference to equities does not, wonders a fund strategist. When it comes to dividend ETFs, it pays to consider total return first, writes Paul Britt, as the yield and performance can vary ... widely. 2 Comments
Tuesday, November 20, 2012, 8:20 AM The recent selloff in dividend stocks represents a buying opportunity, says dividend fund manager Judith Saryan. She's expecting an eventual hike in the dividend tax rate, but to levels far below those for ordinary income. For now, she's steering clear of "frothy" utilities (XLU) and consumer staples (XLP), and looking more to dividend "growth" rather than "yield." Top picks: SNY, LYB, WFC, QCOM. Comment! [Quick Ideas]
Wednesday, November 14, 2012, 12:36 PM "An attempt to quantify ... a qualitative process," is how Morningstar's Josh Peters describes the creation of the Dividend Yield Focus Index. Most dividend indexes, he says, are entirely backward looking. Instead, Peters looks for an economic moat to protect against a dividend ever being cut. Thus far, it's working: The ETF benchmarked to the index (HDV) is outperforming DVY by a wide margin since the April 2011 launch. Comment! [Quick Ideas]
Monday, November 12, 2012, 12:18 PM Following up on research showing little correlation between dividend tax rates and equity returns, Miller Tabak's Andrew Wilkinson suggests selling recently-fattened puts on dividend stocks. "To think that investors will collectively dump dividend-paying stocks into the end of the year in hopes of making a tax savings seems a little fanciful." Comment! [Quick Ideas]

SCHD Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF

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Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF