SPYD vs STXD

SPYDAState Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 High Dividend ETF

STXDCStrive 1000 Dividend Growth ETF

In short

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.

STXD A young Strive index fund that fishes a 1,000-stock US universe for companies with consistently rising dividends, keeps roughly 220 of them, and pays quarterly. At 0.35% a year, it asks more than the category's cheapest.

Stated mandate

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.

STXD The Fund seeks to track the total return of an index of U.S.-listed equities with consistently growing dividends, before fees and expenses.

Why people hold it

• 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.

• STXD Growth of the payout, not the size of it: the mandate targets US-listed companies with consistently growing dividends, so a rising-dividend record drives the screen rather than the fattest headline yield.
• Rules-based and roomy: roughly 220 US stocks tracked against the Bloomberg US 1000 Dividend Growth Index, with cash paid out quarterly.
• The 0.35% annual fee is mid-pack for a dividend screen, not boutique-premium pricing.

Worth knowing

• 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.

• STXD Thinly traded and small in assets, so spreads can be less friendly than in the household-name dividend ETFs.
• Fee math is the hurdle: VIG (0.04%), SCHD (0.06%) and DGRO (0.08%) run a fraction of 0.35% while chasing overlapping dividend-growth ground.
• Launched in 2022, so the track record is short, and our review places it in the lower part of a crowded dividend-screen field.

Full SPYD profile⁠

Full STXD profile⁠