DHS vs SPYD

DHSBWisdomTree U.S. High Dividend Fund

SPYDAState Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 High Dividend ETF

In short

DHS From the shop that made dividend weighting a thing. Since 2006, DHS has ranked US payers by yield, then weighted the survivors by the actual dollars of dividends they pay. Market cap never enters the math.

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

DHS The fund seeks to track the investment results of high-dividend-yielding companies in the U.S. equity market.

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

• DHS Weighting runs on cash dividends paid, tilted by a value, quality and momentum risk score. Big payers get big weights, shaky ones get trimmed.wisdomtree.com
• Only the top 30% of eligible US payers by yield make the cut, and a name stays until it slips out of the top 35%. Deep screen, low churn.sec.gov
• Pays monthly, holds about 400 names, and caps sector weight at the lesser of 25% or 3x the market-cap version so no single yield-heavy sector runs the show.wisdomtree.com
• A 2006 original in the dividend-screen category, now a multi-billion-dollar fund still running the mandate it launched with.

• 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

• DHS The 0.38% fee sits at the middle of the dividend-screen pack, but the cheapest peers here (VIG at 0.04%, SCHD at 0.06%) charge a fraction of it.
• Trades thinly next to the category giants, so limit orders matter more here than in a fund that changes hands constantly.
• By design it buys today's highest yielders, not tomorrow's dividend growers. A different flavor of income than growth-screened peers like DGRO.

• 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 DHS profile⁠

Full SPYD profile⁠