SDOG vs SPYD

SDOGBALPS Sector Dividend Dogs ETF

SPYDAState Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 High Dividend ETF

In short

SDOG Dogs of the Dow, run sector by sector. SDOG buys the five highest-yielding stocks in each of ten US sectors and weights them equally, so the usual yield pileup into utilities and energy can't swallow the portfolio. Running since 2012.

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

SDOG The Fund seeks to replicate, before fees and expenses, the performance of the S-Network Sector Dividend Dogs Index. That index selects the five highest-yielding stocks from each of ten U.S. GICS sectors, excluding real estate, and equally weights them.

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

• SDOG Sector-neutral by construction: five top yielders from each of ten US GICS sectors, equally weighted. Yield hunting with guardrails instead of a bet on whichever sector happens to pay most.alpsfunds.com
• Roughly 50 names, equally weighted. No single mega-cap dominates the way it can in cap-weighted dividend funds.
• Trading since 2012, it tracks its index closely and ranks among the stronger implementations in its dividend-screen peer group. Income is paid quarterly.

• 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

• SDOG At 0.36% a year, it costs multiples of the cap-weighted heavyweights (SCHD at 0.06%, VIG at 0.04%). The sector-equal-weight rulebook is what the extra buys.
• Real estate is excluded from the index outright, so REIT income never enters the portfolio.alpsfunds.com
• Screening for the highest yielders in each sector is a value tilt, and a fat yield sometimes marks a company the market has already knocked down.

• 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 SDOG profile⁠

Full SPYD profile⁠