FID vs WDIV

FIDDFirst Trust S&P International Dividend Aristocrats ETF

WDIVBState Street SPDR S&P Global 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.

WDIV Dividend aristocrats with a passport. WDIV screens the world for companies that have held or raised payouts for at least a decade, buys the top yielders, and caps how much any one stock, sector or country can matter.

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.

WDIV The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the total return of the S&P Global Dividend Aristocrats Index.

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.

• WDIV The aristocrat idea, exported. NOBL's bar is 25 straight years of US dividend hikes; WDIV's is 10 years of stable or rising payouts anywhere in the S&P Global BMI, a far bigger pond.ssga.comproshares.com
• Diversification is written into the rulebook: 3% cap per stock, 25% ceiling per sector and per country, and no more than 20 names from any single country.ssga.com
• Running since 2013 at 0.40%, level with the median fee in its dividend-aristocrat peer group, and it sits in the upper half of that group on our review.
• A compact book of roughly 90 global dividend payers, distributing quarterly.

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

• WDIV 0.40% is the going rate among aristocrat funds, but plainer dividend index options in the same group cost far less (SPDG runs 0.05%).
• Thinly traded next to the headline US dividend names, so spreads can be wider than the sticker fee suggests.
• It is a yield-first screen on foreign shares: currency moves feed into returns, and a decade of merely stable dividends clears the bar alongside real growth.ssga.com

Full FID profile⁠

Full WDIV profile⁠