FID vs SNPD

FIDDFirst Trust S&P International Dividend Aristocrats ETF

SNPDCXtrackers S&P Dividend Aristocrats Screened 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.

SNPD Dividend aristocrats, filtered. SNPD holds S&P Composite 1500 companies that have raised their dividend 20 years running, minus the names that fail the index's ESG screens, for 0.15% a year.

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.

SNPD The fund seeks investment results that generally track the performance of its underlying index before fees and expenses.

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.

• SNPD 0.15% a year, well under the roughly 0.40% median for funds built on aristocrat indexes. A cheap wrapper on a very well-worn idea.
• High entry bar: 20 straight years of dividend increases inside the S&P Composite 1500, then the index's screens. Roughly 110 stocks, distributions paid quarterly.dws.com
• Rules run the portfolio, not a manager. S&P sets the list, Xtrackers buys it, and the fund has tracked that index closely.

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

• SNPD One of the smaller, thinner-traded funds in its peer group. Spreads can be wider than at household-name rivals like SDY or NOBL, and small funds can be closed.
• The screens remove some qualifying aristocrats, so the holdings and results diverge from unscreened versions of the same dividend-growth list.dws.com
• Launched in 2022 under an ESG name. S&P renamed the index in 2025 and the fund followed, with no change to the index methodology or the fund's policies.dws.com

Full FID profile⁠

Full SNPD profile⁠