IDOG vs SCHY

IDOGCALPS International Sector Dividend Dogs ETF

SCHYASchwab International Dividend Equity ETF

In short

IDOG Dogs of the Dow, shipped overseas. IDOG buys the five highest-yielding stocks in each of ten sectors across developed markets outside the Americas, weights them equally, and reshuffles the list every November.

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

IDOG The fund seeks to track the S-Network International Sector Dividend Dogs 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

• IDOG Sector-neutral by construction: five names per sector, equally weighted. The yield screen cannot pile into financials and energy the way cap-weighted dividend funds often do.alpsfunds.comsec.gov
• Rules, not hunches: yields are ranked on the last trading day of November, the index reconstitutes annually and rebalances quarterly. About 50 stocks, none of them US or Canadian.alpsfunds.comsec.gov
• The prospectus targets a correlation of 0.95 or better with its index before fees, and the fund lands in the upper half of its international dividend peer group. Pays quarterly.sec.gov
• Running since 2013, with a US sibling (SDOG) applying the same sector-by-sector playbook to large-cap American stocks.alpsfunds.com

• 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

• IDOG The 0.50% fee matches the peer-group median, but plain index rivals undercut it hard: VYMI at 0.07% and SCHY at 0.08%.
• It trades lightly next to the category's giants, so bid-ask spreads can be wider and large orders need more care.
• A raw yield rank can scoop up companies whose payout looks big because the price fell, and the roster only resets once a year. Foreign dividends arrive unhedged.sec.govalpsfunds.com

• 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 IDOG profile⁠

Full SCHY profile⁠