FID vs SDY

FIDDFirst Trust S&P International Dividend Aristocrats ETF

SDYAState Street SPDR S&P Dividend ETF

In short

FID The Aristocrats formula with a passport. FID applies S&P's long dividend-record discipline to companies outside the US, holding roughly 80 international payers in one index fund and paying cash out quarterly.

SDY The aristocrat fund that doesn't stop at the S&P 500. It fishes the whole S&P Composite 1500 for companies with at least 20 straight years of dividend increases, then weights them by yield, so the fattest payers get the biggest seats.

Stated mandate

FID The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the S&P International Dividend Aristocrats Index by investing principally in the securities comprising that Index.

SDY The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the total return of the S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats Index. The index selects S&P Composite 1500 companies with at least 20 consecutive years of dividend increases and weights them by indicated yield.

Why people hold it

• FID The ex-US branch of a famous family: it tracks the S&P International Dividend Aristocrats Index, taking the long dividend-record screen overseas instead of down the S&P 500 roster.ftportfolios.com
• Rules do the picking. It has run as a passive index fund since 2013, with the quality and value screen written into the benchmark rather than left to a manager's mood.
• Roughly 80 holdings spread the income across many companies, and the fund distributes on a quarterly cadence.

• SDY The bar is 20 consecutive years of dividend increases, drawn from the S&P Composite 1500, so seasoned mid- and small-cap raisers can make the cut alongside megacaps.ssga.com
• Weighting is by indicated yield, not market cap. Money flows toward the higher-yielding survivors of the screen rather than the biggest companies in it.ssga.com
• 0.35% a year, below the typical fee among dividend aristocrat index funds, and it holds roughly 160 names rather than a token handful.
• Trading since 2005, now a multi-billion-dollar fund that has stayed tight to its index. One of the strongest implementations in its aristocrat peer group.

Worth knowing

• FID At 0.60% a year, it runs above the US-focused aristocrat funds in its group such as NOBL and SDY. That gap is what the overseas mandate costs.
• One of the lighter-traded, smaller funds in the category, so bid-ask spreads can add to the cost beyond the expense ratio.
• The dividends are earned in foreign currencies, so exchange-rate swings show up in both the payouts and the returns a US investor sees.ftportfolios.com

• SDY Yield weighting is a tilt, not a neutral stance: the largest positions are the highest payers, which pulls the portfolio toward slower-growth, high-payout corners of the market.
• Not the cheap seat in the category. Sector-neutral dividend indexing is available for a fraction of the fee, for example SPDG at 0.05%.
• Distributions land quarterly, not monthly, and a long raise streak describes a company's past behavior, not a commitment.

Full FID profile⁠

Full SDY profile⁠