DIVI vs FGD

DIVIAFranklin International Core Dividend Tilt Index ETF

FGDBFirst Trust Dow Jones Global Select Dividend Index Fund

In short

DIVI A tilt, not a screen: DIVI optimizes a broad developed-markets ex-North America index toward higher yield while limiting drift from that parent. Core international shape, income lean, 0.09% a year.

FGD A 2007-vintage dividend fund with a genuinely global map: US and overseas payers in one basket, chosen by a dividend quality and liquidity screen rather than raw yield alone.

Stated mandate

DIVI The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the Morningstar Developed Markets ex-North America Dividend Enhanced Select Index. Its index methodology seeks higher dividend yield than the parent index while maintaining core exposure to developed markets outside North America.

FGD The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Dow Jones Global Select Dividend Index.

Why people hold it

• DIVI Costs 0.09% a year, while the median fund in its international-dividend cohort charges closer to 0.50%.
• The index takes a broad developed ex-North America benchmark and optimizes it for higher yield while limiting expected tracking error to that parent. Income lean, core shape.sec.gov
• Tracks its index closely, among the strongest implementations in its peer group.
• A multi-billion-dollar fund holding about 80 developed-market names, paying distributions quarterly.

• FGD Global means global. The mandate is worldwide equity, not ex-US, so domestic and foreign payers sit in the same basket instead of two tickers.ftportfolios.com
• Live since 2007, so it has traded through the financial crisis, a pandemic and a rate spike, and has grown into a multi-billion-dollar fund.
• Names must clear a dividend quality and liquidity screen, so a fat yield alone does not buy a seat in the index.ftportfolios.com
• Roughly 110 holdings, quarterly distributions, and a portfolio that lines up tightly with the Dow Jones Global Select Dividend Index it advertises.

Worth knowing

• DIVI The tilt is mild by design: the index caps how far it can drift from its parent, so it reaches for less yield than funds built on hard high-yield screens.sec.gov
• Cheaper options sit in the same cohort (VYMI at 0.07%, SCHY at 0.08%), so the fee edge is over the category median, not over the largest index shops.
• Today's strategy dates to 2022, when the fund was renamed from Franklin LibertyQ International Equity Hedged ETF, so its 2016-onward record covers a different mandate.sec.gov

• FGD At 0.55%, the fee sits above the cohort median (0.50%) and many times index peers like VYMI (0.07%) and SCHY (0.08%).
• A global book means much of it trades in foreign currencies, so exchange-rate moves show up in dollar returns alongside the stocks themselves.
• Moderately traded rather than a volume giant, and about 110 names is a tighter roster than broad-market dividend funds carry.

Full DIVI profile⁠

Full FGD profile⁠