CDL vs SPYD

CDLBVictoryShares US Large Cap High Div Volatility Wtd ETF

SPYDAState Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 High Dividend ETF

In short

CDL CDL sizes its positions by volatility instead of company size: roughly 100 high-yielding US large caps, with the calmer names getting the wider berth. Income lands monthly.

SPYD Most dividend ETFs hunt for companies that keep raising payouts. SPYD skips the courtship and goes straight for the yield: roughly 80 high-dividend names out of the S&P 500, for 0.07% a year.

Stated mandate

CDL The fund seeks to track the performance of the CEMP US Large Cap High Dividend 100 Volatility Weighted Index before fees and expenses. It normally invests at least 80% of net assets in stocks included in that index.

SPYD The fund seeks to provide returns that generally correspond to the total return of the S&P 500 High Dividend Index before fees and expenses.

Why people hold it

• CDL The index screens US large caps for high dividends, then weights the survivors by volatility, so a stock's slot is set by how it trades, not how big it is.
• Pays monthly, a smoother cadence than the calendar most equity income portfolios run on.
• Running since 2015 and still doing the advertised job: at least 80% of net assets in its index's names, tracked closely.
• Lands in the upper half of a crowded dividend-screen field, with the underlying basket among its stronger features.

• SPYD 0.07% a year against a 0.39% median across dividend-screen peers. It undercuts DGRO's 0.08% and sits a hair above SCHD.
• A pure yield screen, not a growth screen. Where VIG and DGRO buy payout raisers, SPYD takes the high-dividend end of the S&P 500. Different flavor of the same food group.
• Running since 2015, now a multi-billion-dollar fund and one of the more actively traded names in its cohort, so getting in and out is rarely the hard part.
• Pays quarterly and has tracked the S&P 500 High Dividend Index closely, which is the whole job for a fund like this.

Worth knowing

• CDL The 0.39% fee sits right at the peer median, but big index-tracking rivals like SCHD (0.06%), VIG (0.04%) and DGRO (0.08%) run at a fraction of it.
• Thinly traded for the category, so spreads can be wider at the moment you place an order.
• A yield screen plus volatility weighting builds a portfolio that looks little like a cap-weighted index, so it moves on its own schedule.

• SPYD About 80 stocks is a narrow slice. Screening on yield pulls the sector mix away from the broad S&P 500, and the ride can be bumpier than the index it comes from.
• A high yield is a ranking, not a promise. The index sorts on payout size, not on how reliably a company has grown or defended that payout.

Full CDL profile⁠

Full SPYD profile⁠