DGRO vs SPDV

DGROAiShares Core Dividend Growth ETF

SPDVBAAM S&P 500 High Dividend Value 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.

SPDV Most high-dividend screens end up a pile of utilities and financials. SPDV takes the five best dividend-plus-free-cash-flow names in every S&P 500 sector, equal-weights them, and pays out monthly.

Stated mandate

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

SPDV The Fund passively tracks the S&P 500 Dividend and Free Cash Flow Yield Index. Its rules-based, equal-weighted approach targets S&P 500 constituents with high dividend yields and sustainable dividend distributions while maintaining diversified sector exposure.

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.

• SPDV Yield alone can flag a payout about to be cut. This index ranks S&P 500 names on dividend yield times free-cash-flow yield, so the dividend has to be backed by cash the business actually generates.sec.gov
• Top five scorers per GICS sector, equal-weighted, reset each January and July. No single sector or mega-cap gets to run the portfolio.sec.gov
• 0.29% a year, below the median fee among dividend-screen funds, and distributions land monthly rather than quarterly.
• No manager discretion to drift: a rules-based portfolio of roughly 50 stocks that has hewed closely to its stated index.

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.

• SPDV A smaller, thinly traded fund. Limit orders matter more here than with the category's household names.
• The index giants in this corner (SCHD, SPYD, VIG) charge under a tenth of a percent, so SPDV's fee buys the sector-balanced cash-flow screen, not the cheapest beta.
• Sector balance cuts both ways: when one high-yield corner is hot, SPDV still holds only five names in it, and the semi-annual reset can churn holdings.sec.gov

Full DGRO profile⁠

Full SPDV profile⁠