HDEF vs SCHY

HDEFAXtrackers MSCI EAFE High Dividend Yield Equity ETF

SCHYASchwab International Dividend Equity 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.

SCHY Schwab's dividend playbook with a passport: an index of non-US high payers filtered for sustained dividends, financial strength and low volatility, run for 0.08% a year while the typical fund in its group charges 0.50%.

Stated mandate

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

SCHY The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, an index of high-dividend-yielding stocks issued by companies outside the United States. Its index methodology emphasizes sustained dividend payments, relative financial strength, and lower volatility.

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.

• SCHY Costs 0.08% a year against a 0.50% median for international dividend screens, one of the cheapest ways to rent this strategy.
• The index does more than chase yield: it screens for sustained payers, relative financial strength and lower volatility. Cash goes out quarterly.
• A plain passive tracker of the Dow Jones International Dividend 100 Index that has hugged its benchmark closely, with a multibillion-dollar base and shares that trade actively.
• Stands among the stronger implementations in its international dividend peer group on cost, tracking and tradability.

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.

• SCHY Roughly 130 stocks, a narrower net than a broad international fund. Dividend screens naturally bunch up in a handful of sectors and countries.
• Launched in 2021, so it carries a shorter live record than the veterans of international dividend investing.
• Two neighbors shave the fee a touch further: VYMI and VIGI charge 0.07%, though each screens for different things.

Full HDEF profile⁠

Full SCHY profile⁠