DVND vs VUS

DVNDBTouchstone Dividend Select ETF

VUSBVirtus U.S. Dividend ETF

In short

DVND Active dividend picking with a moat filter: Fort Washington looks for large-cap companies whose competitive advantages can keep funding a rising dividend, bought at what it judges a reasonable price. A few dozen names, paid quarterly.

VUS An AI-assisted dividend fund at a passive-fund price. A quant model reads sentiment and valuation, humans make the final call, and it charges 0.25%, less than half the typical active US dividend ETF.

Stated mandate

DVND The Fund seeks current income and capital appreciation. It normally invests at least 80% of assets in equity securities of U.S. large-cap companies with a history of paying dividends, emphasizing consistent dividend growth.

VUS The Fund seeks current income and, secondarily, long-term capital appreciation.

Why people hold it

• DVND Quality screen, not a yield screen: the prospectus targets consistent, growing dividend payers with barriers to entry strong enough to keep funding those payments.sec.gov
• 0.50% net of a fee waiver through April 29, 2027, which lands near the typical fee in its US dividend-income category.
• The portfolio sticks closely to its stated job (US large-cap dividend payers), and the fund sits in the upper half of its dividend-income peer group.
• Low-churn by design: valuation-driven entries and historically light portfolio turnover, so less trading drag and fewer taxable events to pass along.sec.govsec.gov 2

• VUS 0.25% a year, under half the 0.55% median for active US dividend ETFs and cheaper than every top-graded name in the cohort (CGDV, HIDV, MBOX, BGIG, TDVG).
• The engine: a proprietary alpha model using AI-powered language processing for sentiment plus valuation factors. Virtus portfolio managers make the final trading calls.sec.gov
• About 90 US-listed dividend payers, with at least 80% of net assets in them. Focused enough for picks to register, wide enough to spread single-name risk.sec.gov

Worth knowing

• DVND That 0.50% is contractual, not permanent: the gross expense ratio is 1.15%, and the waiver runs through April 29, 2027.
• Thinly traded with a modest asset base, which tends to mean wider bid-ask spreads than the category's household names.
• Cheaper options exist among the category's strongest funds, with no waiver attached: VUS at 0.25%, CGDV at 0.33%, HIDV at 0.35%.

• VUS Launched December 2025 with a small asset base and light volume, so spreads can run wider than the cohort's household names and live history on the model is short.
• The prospectus lets the fund put more than 15% of assets in a single sector, so the portfolio can lean hard into a few corners of the market.sec.gov
• Income arrives annually or semiannually rather than monthly, so the cash shows up in lumps.

Full DVND profile⁠

Full VUS profile⁠