QDIV vs SPYD

QDIVBGlobal X S&P 500 Quality Dividend ETF

SPYDAState Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 High Dividend ETF

In short

QDIV Most dividend funds chase yield and hope quality follows. QDIV demands both: a stock must rank in the S&P 500's top 200 on dividend yield and top 200 on quality to get in. Roughly 50 names, equal weighted, paid monthly.

SPYD Most dividend ETFs hunt for companies that keep raising payouts. SPYD skips the courtship and goes straight for the yield: roughly 80 high-dividend names out of the S&P 500, for 0.07% a year.

Stated mandate

QDIV The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the S&P 500 Quality High Dividend Index.

SPYD The fund seeks to provide returns that generally correspond to the total return of the S&P 500 High Dividend Index before fees and expenses.

Why people hold it

• QDIV The double screen is the whole point: only S&P 500 names in the top 200 by dividend yield AND the top 200 by quality score (return on equity, accruals, leverage) make the cut.globalxetfs.comspglobal.com
• 0.20% a year, roughly half the typical fee among dividend-screen ETFs.
• Equal weighting plus a 25% cap on any one sector at each semiannual rebalance stops a single megacap or a single corner of the market from running the show.spglobal.com
• Pays monthly, and the portfolio has tracked its index closely.

• SPYD 0.07% a year against a 0.39% median across dividend-screen peers. It undercuts DGRO's 0.08% and sits a hair above SCHD.
• A pure yield screen, not a growth screen. Where VIG and DGRO buy payout raisers, SPYD takes the high-dividend end of the S&P 500. Different flavor of the same food group.
• Running since 2015, now a multi-billion-dollar fund and one of the more actively traded names in its cohort, so getting in and out is rarely the hard part.
• Pays quarterly and has tracked the S&P 500 High Dividend Index closely, which is the whole job for a fund like this.

Worth knowing

• QDIV Cheap next to the average dividend screener, less so next to the giants: VIG (0.04%), SCHD (0.06%) and DGRO (0.08%) all charge less.
• It trades thinly, so spreads can be wider than the household names. Limit orders earn their keep here.
• About 50 equal-weighted stocks means each name carries real weight, and the twin screens can leave the fund leaning on whichever sectors pass both tests.spglobal.com

• SPYD About 80 stocks is a narrow slice. Screening on yield pulls the sector mix away from the broad S&P 500, and the ride can be bumpier than the index it comes from.
• A high yield is a ranking, not a promise. The index sorts on payout size, not on how reliably a company has grown or defended that payout.

Full QDIV profile⁠

Full SPYD profile⁠