NOBL vs WDIV

NOBLAProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats ETF

WDIVBState Street SPDR S&P Global Dividend ETF

In short

NOBL Dividend investing without the yield chase. NOBL holds roughly 70 S&P 500 companies picked for their records as dividend growers, not for the fattest payout on the screen. A purist's take on the theme, running since 2013.

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

NOBL The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats 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

• NOBL The screen is the product: a slice of about 70 names pulled from the S&P 500 on dividend-growth credentials, not headline yield.
• At 0.35% a year, it sits below the typical fee in its dividend-growth peer group and matches SDY, the other big S&P dividend index fund.
• A multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, and it has tracked its index tightly. One of the stronger builds in its niche.

• 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

• NOBL Mid-priced, not cheap. Broad sector-neutral dividend index funds such as SPDG charge a fraction of NOBL's 0.35%.
• Roughly 70 stocks means real single-name and sector concentration next to the full S&P 500, and it is all-equity, so market drawdowns come through.
• Cash lands quarterly, not monthly, and the mandate rewards payout consistency rather than the biggest current yield.

• 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 NOBL profile⁠

Full WDIV profile⁠