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Nine Companies Increasing Dividends

user458794:
vanguard has a relatively low fee (0.35% per year) fund called the dividend appreciation index fund (vdaix) that mimics the index of the s&p dividend achievers. mstar gives it 4 stars, but i didn't check out who mstar benchmarks the fund against. one caveat, firms like wells fargo and pfizer cut their dividends during 2009, but s&p only creates the list once per year; hence, vanguard includes them in the fund just as s&p currently includes them in the list of dividend achievers--you and i know with virtual certainty that s&p will exclude them in the 2010 list but vanguard will not eliminate the position until the new list comes out (ironically, wells fargo is the largest holding according to vanguard's web site.)

vanguard also has an actively managed fund, the dividend growth fund (vdigx) that gets 5 stars from mstar, has slightly lower fees (0.32% per year), and also offers a higher current yield than vdaix.

by the way, if you prefer etfs, vanguard also offers vig, an etf that should tracks the same index used by vgaix but only costs 0.24% per year. mstar gives vig 4 stars.


On Nov 03 08:52 AM User 458794 wrote:

> To: Dividend Growth Investor (not sure how to reach you otherwise),
> or other contributor:
> Question: Is there a highly rated (Morningstar 5-star) Mutual Fund
> you would suggest as a core holding for my Roth IRA which contains
> the top Dividend Growth U.S. companies that you mention often, that
> is also no load and low fees? This would hopefully anchor a portfolio
> of individual dividend stocks. Looking at a 10 to 15 year time frame
> now. I am having trouble looking for this data myself. Thanks.