DGRO vs SMDV

DGROAiShares Core Dividend Growth ETF

SMDVCProShares S&P SmallCap 600 Dividend Aristocrats ETF

In short

DGRO BlackRock's dividend-growth screen casts a wider net than most: five straight years of raises rather than ten, plus a payout-ratio cap that filters out stretched payers. About 400 US dividend raisers, large through small cap, for 0.08% a year.

SMDV Dividend-growth screens usually live in large-cap land. SMDV points one at the small-cap Russell 2000 instead, holding about 100 names selected for their dividend growth records, and it has run that way since 2015.

Stated mandate

DGRO The fund seeks to follow an index of U.S. equities whose dividends have grown consistently.

SMDV SMDV seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the Russell 2000 Dividend Growth Index.

Why people hold it

• DGRO Costs 0.08% a year, a small fraction of the typical fee among US dividend-screen ETFs.
• The screen has teeth: a qualified dividend, five years of uninterrupted dividend growth, a payout ratio under 75%, and the top decile of yielders cut before the other tests run.ishares.com
• Roughly 400 names across large, mid and small caps, weighted by the dividend dollars each company pays rather than by market cap.ishares.comcib.barclays
• Tracks the Morningstar US Dividend Growth Index about as tightly as this group gets, and it's an actively traded, multi-billion-dollar fund that has run since 2014.

• SMDV A small-cap version of a large-cap idea: it tracks the Russell 2000 Dividend Growth Index, so the sorting rule is payout history rather than size or price momentum.
• Live since 2015 with assets in the hundreds of millions, it is a settled product in a corner of the market where new ideas often come and go.
• About 100 holdings and quarterly distributions make it a compact, income-oriented slice of US small caps, not a 2,000-stock index clone.

Worth knowing

• DGRO Chopping the highest-yielding decile is deliberate: this is built around payout growth and dividend durability, not the fattest current yield on the shelf.ishares.com
• Only dividend payers qualify, so some of the market's biggest non-paying growth companies sit outside the portfolio by rule.ishares.com
• Income arrives quarterly, not monthly, and this is plain US stock exposure: no buffer, no hedge, full equity risk.

• SMDV At 0.40% a year it runs above the typical fund in its factor group, and far above broad dividend options such as VYM at 0.04%.
• It trades thinly, so spreads and limit orders deserve more attention here than with a headline large-cap dividend fund.
• Narrow by design: roughly 100 small caps chosen on dividend history can move quite differently from the full Russell 2000.

Full DGRO profile⁠

Full SMDV profile⁠