HDEF vs IGRO

HDEFAXtrackers MSCI EAFE High Dividend Yield Equity ETF

IGROAiShares International Dividend Growth ETF

In short

HDEF Its cohort manufactures income with options overlays. HDEF skips the machinery: roughly 120 higher-yielding developed-market stocks, tracked passively, for nine basis points.

IGRO Dividend growth, not dividend yield, taken overseas. IGRO tracks a Morningstar index of non-US companies with a habit of raising their payouts, spread across roughly 500 names, for a fee that undercuts most of the international dividend shelf.

Stated mandate

HDEF The Fund uses a passive indexing approach to track the MSCI EAFE High Dividend Yield Index before fees and expenses.

IGRO The fund seeks to track an index of international stocks with a history of growing dividends, providing dividend-focused international equity exposure for income and long-term growth.

Why people hold it

• HDEF Nine basis points. The overlay funds it sits beside run 0.42% (EFAA) to 0.83% (OVF), against a peer-group median near half a percent.
• Income comes from dividends the companies declare, not from selling calls, so no written option sits on the upside. Distributions arrive quarterly.
• The index screens for quality alongside yield, so a name has to clear more than a big payout number to get in.
• Live since 2015 and now a billion-dollar-plus fund, following the same MSCI index the whole way rather than rebuilding the strategy.

• IGRO Costs 0.15% a year, well under the typical fee for an international dividend screen.
• Does what the label says: it follows the Morningstar Global ex-US Dividend Growth Index closely, one of the tightest index-to-portfolio matches in its peer group.
• Roughly 500 non-US payers, so no single dividend carries the fund. Cash goes out quarterly.

Worth knowing

• HDEF No currency hedge in the mandate: euro, yen and pound moves against the dollar land in returns right alongside the stocks.
• Yield screening cuts a broad developed-markets universe down to roughly 120 names, so this is a slice of EAFE, not the full field.
• Moderately traded rather than a headline ticker, so spreads can widen in quiet stretches. Limit orders are the usual answer.

• IGRO It trades thin next to heavyweights like VYMI, so limit orders and calmer mid-session trading matter more here.
• The screen targets payout growth, not the fattest yields, so income tends to run lighter than yield-first international funds.
• Cheaper neighbors exist: VIGI at 0.07% and SCHY at 0.08%, though each tracks a different index with a different holdings list.

Full HDEF profile⁠

Full IGRO profile⁠