Vanguard ETF: | 7.4%* | ||
Diversified Core: | 8.1%* | ||
Six Core Asset ETFs: | 7.3%* |
Articles on SDY
- Retirement Income ETFs vs. Income Mutual Funds: An Update
09/11/2011
We first compared asset allocation portfolios using dividend ETFs (and bond ETFs) and those using income mutual funds on SeekingAlpha.com Retirement Income Investing: ETFs vs. Mutual Funds more than two months ago. Let's review these two plans: Retirement Income ETFs and Schwab Income Mutual Fund Select List.
Here are the asset classes covered by the two plans:
The list of minor asset classes covered by Retirement Income ETFs The list of minor asset classes covered by Schwab Income Mutual Fund Select List Diversified Emerging Mkts: EEM, VWO, DEM
Emerging Markets Bond: EMB, PCY
Equity Energy: AMJ
Foreign Large Value: PID, IDV
Global Real Estate: RWX
High Yield Bond: HYG
Inflation-protected Bond: TIP
Intermediate Government: IEI
Intermediate-term Bond: CIU, CORP, MBB
Large Blend: VIG
Large Value: DVY, SDY, VYM, FVD
Long Government: IEF, TLT
Long-term Bond: LQD, VCLT
Mid-cap Value: PEY
Miscellaneous Sector: PFF
Muni National Long: MUB
Muni Short: SHM
Real Estate: IYR, ICF, VNQ
Short Government: SHY
Short-term Bond: CSJ, VCSH
World Bond: BWX, WIPEmerging Markets Bond: TGINX
Foreign Large Blend: SICNX, LISOX
Foreign Large Value: AAIPX
High Yield Bond: STHTX, MWHYX
Inflation-protected Bond: ACITX
Intermediate Government: SWGSX, CPTNX
Intermediate-term Bond: SWIIX, SAMFX, PTTDX, PGBOX, MWTRX, FTRFX
Large Blend: SWANX, TICRX, PRBLX
Large Growth: SWLSX, JENSX
Large Value: TWEIX, PQIAX
Mid-cap Blend: NMMCX
Mid-cap Value: ARDEX
Multisector Bond: PONDX
Muni National Interm: SWNTX, TWTIX, STTBX
Muni National Long: NOTEX, ACLVX
Muni Short: FSHIX
Real Estate: CSRSX
Short Government: FIGTX
Short-term Bond: FSTIX, ACSNX
Ultrashort Bond: SIGVX
World Bond: PFODXAsset Class Retirement Income ETFs Schwab Income Mutual Fund Select List REITs 4 1 Fixed Income 19 24 Sector Fund 2 0 Foreign Equity 2 3 Emerging Market Equity 3 0 US Equity 6 9 Other 0 0 Total 36 37 Little in the two plans' investment choice ratings has changed since then. As of Sep 9, 2011, Retirement Income ETFs investment choice is rated as average and Schwab Income Mutual Fund Select List investment choice is rated as above average based on MyPlanIQ Plan Rating methodology that was designed to measure how effective a plan's available investment funds are . It has the following detailed ratings:
Attribute Retirement Income ETFs Schwab Income Mutual Fund Select List Diversification great (95%) great (85%) Fund Quality below average (29%) great (85%) Portfolio Building above average (67%) above average (71%) Overall Rating average (64%) above average (80%)
Performance chart (as of Sep 9, 2011)Performance table (as of Sep 9, 2011)
Portfolio Name 2011 YTD 1Yr AR 1Yr Sharpe 3Yr AR 3Yr Sharpe 5Yr AR 5Yr Sharpe Retirement Income ETFs Tactical Asset Allocation Moderate 2.49% 8% 80% 11% 84% 10% 71% Retirement Income ETFs Strategic Asset Allocation Moderate -1.16% 5% 42% 5% 23% 3% 14% Schwab Income Mutual Fund Select List Tactical Asset Allocation Moderate 3% 9% 84% 11% 101% 10% 92% Schwab Income Mutual Fund Select List Strategic Asset Allocation Moderate -2.11% 4% 35% 4% 27% 3% 16% Refer to detailed portfolio comparison.
Again, we are seeing income ETFs can still rival the well selected income mutual funds. This is a good news for income investors in their IRA investments or taxable account investments. ETFs have more flexibility and have a well defined and simple indexing strategy (isn't this what MyPlanIQ is also doing?).
Disclosure:MyPlanIQ does not have any business relationship with the company or companies mentioned in this article. It does not set up their retirement plans. The performance data of portfolios mentioned above are obtained through historical simulation and are hypothetical.
Symbols: SPX, VIG, DVY, SDY, ICF, RWX, HYG, LQD, IEF, TLT, TIP, AMJ, TWEIX, LISOX, CSRSX, PTTDX, Retirement Investments, IRAs, ETF Portfolios, Portfolio Management, Risk Management, Dividend ETFs
- Dividend Stock ETF Investing: Growth vs. Value
05/24/2011
Dividends have been long considered to be an important metric to value a company. In essence, dividends are the cash payment out of earnings from a company. If a company has a mandate to reward its shareholders with part of its earnings, company management is more responsible for and conscious on their excessive earnings: give back to shareholders or plow them back for future growth. This puts a check on executives to curb their growth at any price or expand company bureaucracy for their own purposes.
Dividend ETFs are favorable investing vehicles in retirement investing. This is especially important for retirees or baby boomers who are relying dividends as part of their income. These ETFs have been used to build lower risk and higher return asset allocation portfolios such asRetirement Income ETFs. Please refer to this article for more details.
Two popular strateggies are employed in dividend stock investing: dividend growth (or appreciation) vs. dividend weighted (or hogs). The former selects and weighs more heavily on stocks that have a record of increasing dividends over time. The latter basically weighs more heavily on stocks that have higher yields (with the exception of filtering out some lower grade stocks). If one views dividends are a stream of earnings that are actually materialized to be delivered to shareholders over time, the dividend growth approach is like growth at a reasonable price while dividend hogs is like value investing.
These two strategies are used for most of dividend stock ETFs. The following is a list of some of these U.S. dividend stock ETFs:
Vanguard Dividend Appreciation (VIG) Growth Vanguard High Dividend Yield Indx (VYM) Hogs First Trust Value Line Dividend Index (FVD) Growth iShares Dow Jones Select Dividend Index (DVY) Hogs PowerShares HighYield Dividend Achievers (PEY) Growth SPDR S&P Dividend (SDY) Hogs The dividend growth strategy puts more weight on high quality companies that have increased their dividends over time. The high dividends are not the primary focus. Companies that increase dividend payout over time in general should have better cash flow and higher confidence in their future earnings. They are also more shareholder friendly. Such strategy has been long adopted in investment communities. Some of the best investment newsletters such as Valueline and Investment Quality Trends have had model portfolios employing this approach for more than 30 years.
The high dividend (or so called 'dividend hog') strategy, on the other hand, might run into dangers of investing in companies that merely try to maintain high dividends to appeal to investors.
The following table & chart show the performance of the above ETFs:
Portfolio Performance Comparison
Portfolio/Fund Name 1Yr AR 1Yr Sharpe 3Yr AR 3Yr Sharpe 5Yr AR 5Yr Sharpe PEY 19% 105% -2% -9% -4% -18% FVD 27% 147% 4% 18% 8% 29% DVY 28% 208% 1% 3% 0% -3% VIG 25% 143% 5% 18% 5% 16% VYM 28% 152% 3% 6% From the above, it is clear that dividend growth ETFs outperformed dividend hog ETFs. Part of the reason is that during the 2008-2009 financial crisis, high dividend financial companies such as banks and mortgage companies were severely damaged.Disclosure: MyPlanIQ does not have any business relationship with the company or companies mentioned in this article. It does not set up their retirement plans. The performance data of portfolios mentioned above are obtained through historical simulation and are hypothetical.Symbols: VIG, VYM, SDY, FVD, DVY, PEY
- Recent Calamities Don’t Slow Down US Equities But What’s Coming Next is Anybody’s Guess
03/30/2011
Catastrophic events in Japan left the world in shock, and brought an economic powerhouse to a temporary standstill seems to have had little impact on US equities as the immediate drama dies down. North Africa and the Middle East still have the possibility of exploding.
Despite everything, US growth appears to be still on track. Labor markets and last quarter’s GDP 3.1% shows the economy is moving in the right direction despite consumer sentiment being on the low side which is to be expected with current events.
US ASSETS CLASS RETURNS
In US Equities, Large Cap Value is towards the bottom of the table as investors are looking for more risk with higher returns. However, in the light of current events and evidence of risk, large cap (safe) and value (higher return) may be an interesting compromise. Over the past five years US LARGE CAP GROWTH (ETF) has the highest 5 year returns and US MID CAP VALUE (ETF) the highest one year return.
Description
Symbol
1 Yr
3 Yr
5 Yr
1 Yr Sharpe
SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Aver
12.09%
0.73%
3.17%
72.34%
Vanguard Dividend Appreciation
11.54%
3.01%
NA
69.21%
Vanguard Value ETF
11.43%
-0.38%
1.43%
62.67%
iShares Dow Jones Select Divid
11.23%
-1.78%
-1.82%
73.78%
iShares Russell 1000 Value Ind
11.04%
-1.14%
0.29%
59.07%
iShares S&P 500 Value Index
10.73%
-1.73%
-0.29%
55.86%
SPDR S&P Dividend
8.88%
3.44%
2.12%
54.49%
This chart shows the top large cap value ETFs based on volume and return. Without sufficient volume, any ETF can suffer low liquidity or high trading friction.
The best performers in the US Large cap value stocks are:
1. SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Aver (DIA)
2. Vanguard Dividend Appreciation (VIG)
DIA is star performer in terms of return the 1 year returns are 12.09 % with an average volume of 7.8 million. The 5 year yields are also the highest at 3.17% giving us added confidence.
VIG is the second best perfomer with the return of 11.54% in year although the VIG is a new ETF being in market for less than 5 years the overall performance is very good the three year yields are 3%.
The large cap value ETF are those whose values are above that $10 billion, the size of these ETF’s give them the favourable advantage in the event of volatile period as these fund related investments are less riskier due to the change in terms of environmental factor.
Currently they are out of favour with those who are looking for return but in these days of increasing risk awareness, perhaps they will come back into fashion.
Disclosure:
MyPlanIQ does not have any business relationship with the company or companies mentioned in this article. It does not set up their retirement plans. The performance data of portfolios mentioned above are obtained through historical simulation and are hypothetical.
Symbols:DIA,DVY,IVE,IWD,SDY,VIG,VTV,SPY,VTI,
Symbols: (NYSE: DIA), (NYSE: DVY), (NYSE: IVE), (NYSE: IWD), (NYSE: SDY), (NYSE: VIG), (NYSE: VTV), (NYSE: SPY), (NYSE: VTI)
- Tactically Manage An Income Producing Portfolio With Commodity Exposure
03/25/2011
Coming out of the great recession, governments around the world have adopted loose monetary policies to prop up the economies. These include U.S. central bank's QE2 (Quantitative Easing act 2) and Euro Zone's bailout of troubling peripheral countries like Greece. The current natural disasters in Japan and other countries can only add more demand for the stimulus. These policies resulted in commodity hoarding, especially in material hungry emerging economies such as China.
It is critical to have anti-inflation anti-currency devaluation component. In this article, we explore the feasibility of adding commodity exposure to an income producing portfolio. Commodity ETFs are effective tools to cope with the current situations. In a portfolio that is designed to preserve capital for retirement needs. However, because of volatile and somewhat dangerous nature of commodites, one needs to actively manage such a portfolio by adopting tactical asset allocation strategies.
Income producing ETFs such as high yield stock ETFs and bond ETFs can be used to build a lower risk portfolio for retirement income producing purpose. We study the two plans: one is without commodity exposure and the other one with the exposure.Retirement Income ETFs with Commodities plan is an extension to Retirement Income ETFs: adding extra commodity asset class with PowerShares DB Commodity Index (DBC) and GreenHaven Continuous Commodity (GCC). This plan consists of 37 funds. These funds enable investors to gain exposure to 6 major assets: US Equity, Commodity, Foreign Equity, Emerging Market Equity, REITs, Fixed Income. Compared with Retirement Income ETFs, this plan has two additional ETFs that represent the extra commodity asset class.
The following is the list of the candidate ETFs in the Retirement Income ETFs with Commodities:
The list of minor asset classes covered by Retirement Income ETFs with Commodities Commodities Broad Basket: DBC, GCC
Diversified Emerging Mkts: EEM, VWO, DEM
Emerging Markets Bond: EMB, PCY
Foreign Large Value: PID, IDV
Global Real Estate: RWX
High Yield Bond: HYG
Inflation-protected Bond: TIP
Intermediate Government: IEI
Intermediate-term Bond: CIU, CORP, MBB
Large Blend: VIG
Large Value: DVY, SDY, VYM, FVD
Long Government: IEF, TLT
Long-term Bond: LQD, VCLT
Mid-cap Value: PEY
Miscellaneous Sector: PFF
Muni National Long: MUB
Muni Short: SHM
Real Estate: IYR, ICF, VNQ
Short Government: SHY
Short-term Bond: CSJ, VCSH
World Bond: BWX, WIPAs of Mar 24, 2011, Retirement Income ETFs with Commodities investment choice is rated as and Retirement Income ETFs investment choice is rated as average based on MyPlanIQ Plan Rating methodology that was designed to measure how effective a plan's available investment funds are. It has the following detailed ratings:
The chart and table below show the historical performance of moderate model portfolios employing strategic and tactical asset allocation strategies (SAA and TAA , both provided by MyPlanIQ).
Performance chart (as of Mar 24, 2011)
Performance table (as of Mar 24, 2011)
Portfolio Name 1Yr AR 1Yr Sharpe 3Yr AR 3Yr Sharpe 5Yr AR 5Yr Sharpe Retirement Income ETFs with Commodities Tactical Asset Allocation Moderate 10% 79% 8% 68% 11% 83% Retirement Income ETFs with Commodities Strategic Asset Allocation Moderate 11% 97% 1% 4% 4% 20% Retirement Income ETFs Tactical Asset Allocation Moderate 7% 40% 8% 65% 10% 62% Retirement Income ETFs Strategic Asset Allocation Moderate 11% 69% 3% 14% 5% 17% Discussions:
1. Commodity ETFs are volatile. In fact, PowerShare DB Commodity Index ETF (DBC) lost 32% in 2008 while iShares S&P GSCI Commodity Index (GSG) lost a whopping 46% in the same year.
2. Simply adding commodity ETFs to a strategic asset allocation portfolio (buy and hold with regular rebalancing) did not improve the returns in the past five years. This is again due to the big loss incurred in commodtiy ETFs.
3. Adding commodity ETFs as fund candidates in a tactical asset allocation portfolio, however, can improve returns. In the past five years, Retirement Income ETFs with Commodities Tactical Asset Allocation Moderate had extra 1% annualized return over Retirement Income ETFs Tactical Asset Allocation Moderate.
In conclusions. commodity ETFs are effective tools to cope with the current situations. In a portfolio that is designed to preserve capital for retirement needs. However, because of volatile and somewhat dangerous nature of commodites, one needs to actively manage such a portfolio by adopting tactical asset allocation strategies.
Disclosure:MyPlanIQ does not have any business relationship with the company or companies mentioned in this article. It does not set up their retirement plans. The performance data of portfolios mentioned above are obtained through historical simulation and are hypothetical.
Symbols:DBC,GCC,GSG,EEM,VWO,DEM,EMB,PCY,PID,IDV,RWX,HYG,TIP,WIP,IEI,CIU,CORP,MBB,VIG, DVY,SDY,VYM,FVD,IEF,TLT,LQD,VCLT,PEY,PFF,MUB,SHM,IYR,ICF,VNQ,SHY,CSJ,VCSH,BWX,
Exchange Tickers: (DBC),(GCC),(GSG),(EEM),(VWO),(DEM),(EMB),(PCY),(PID),(IDV),(RWX),(HYG),(TIP),(WIP),(IEI),(CIU),(CORP),(MBB),(VIG),(DVY),(SDY),(VYM),(FVD),(IEF),(TLT),(LQD),(VCLT),(PEY),(PFF),(MUB),(SHM),(IYR),( ICF),(VNQ),(SHY),(CSJ),(VCSH),(BWX)
- Dividend Stock ETFs Somewhat Defensive But Not Enough to Withstand Market Stress
03/17/2011
The week ending on last Wednesday was not easy to investors: the biggest events in the week are the Japanese biggest earthquake in the last 20 years and its increasingly dangerous nuclear reactors meltdown (still unfolding). In the domestic economic side, the housing starts (home construction) in February plunged to the lowest level in almost a year, indicating the housing situation is yet to stabilize.
The performance of dividend stock ETFs for the week ending on Wednesday (3/16/2011) varied. Dividend ETFs clearly showed their defensive natures: for U.S. equity, the broadbase S&P 500 (SPY) dropped 4.7%, while SPDR S&P dividend (SDY) dropped 4.1%, iShares Dow Jones Dividend Select (DVY) dropped 4.2%. In fact, all of U.S. stock dividend ETFs fared better than S&P 500. A standout is the iShares S&P U.S. Preferred ETF (PFF), losing only 0.6%. Similarly, Powershares Intl Dividend Achievers (PID) did much better than broadbase MSCI index (EFA): -5.3% vs. -9.1%. For more detailed performance, please refer to here.
The following table shows the trend scores of dividend ETFs. A noticeable jump is for the Preferred ETF (PFF): it now rose from the last place to the middle in the table, indicating a clear defensive nature of the preferred stocks.Assets Class Symbols 03/16
Trend
Score03/09
Trend
ScoreDirection iShares Dow Jones US Real Estate IYR 4.65% 9.61% v Vanguard Dividend Appreciation VIG 2.98% 9.2% v SPDR S&P 500 SPY 2.79% 9.41% v Vanguard High Dividend Yield Indx VYM 2.7% 9.15% v iShares Dow Jones Select Dividend Index DVY 2.43% 8.42% v iShares S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index PFF 2.32% 3.38% v First Trust Value Line Dividend Index FVD 1.91% 8.22% v SPDR S&P Dividend SDY 1.74% 7.95% v WisdomTree Emerging Market Equity Income DEM 1.66% 8.12% v PowerShares Intl Dividend Achievers PID 1.01% 7.84% v PowerShares HighYield Dividend Achievers PEY 0.12% 7.11% v iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index EEM -0.44% 6.3% v iShares Dow Jones Intl Select Div Idx IDV -0.92% 8.05% v SPDR DJ Wilshire Intl Real Estate RWX -1.47% 9.74% v iShares MSCI EAFE Index EFA -4.57% 6.48% v The trend score is defined as the average of 1,4,13,26 and 52 week total returns (including dividend reinvested).
Portfolios that use dividend ETFs in place of broadbase stock index ETFs showed a slight advantage over a pure broadbase index ETFs based portfolios. For example, we introduced a retirement income ETF investment plan that uses dividend stock ETFs. The following chart shows the five day performance comparison between the Strategic Asset Allocation (SAA) moderate risk portfolio and a broadbased Five Core Asset ETF (SAA) moderate risk portfolio:
In fact, the dividend ETF plan's Strategic Asset Allocation (SAA) moderate risk portfolio had a big 28% drop in 2008. That shows one can not simply rely on dividend paying ETFs to avoid big loss.
If a more tactive Tactical Asset Allocation (TAA) strategy is used for these dividend ETFs, performance can be improved dramatically:
Portfolio Performance Comparison
Portfolio Name 1Yr AR 1Yr Sharpe 3Yr AR 3Yr Sharpe 5Yr AR 5Yr Sharpe Retirement Income ETFs Strategic Asset Allocation Moderate 8% 63% 4% 17% 4% 16% Retirement Income ETFs Tactical Asset Allocation Moderate 5% 60% 8% 72% 9% 68%
The takeaway is that dividend stock ETFs are more defensive in nature. However, to achieve greater risk reduction, a more active tactical asset allocation strategy should be employed.
Symbols: RWX,SPY,IYR,VIG,IDV,VYM,EEM,PID,EFA,FVD,DVY,PEY,SDY,PFF ,
Symbols: (NASDAQ: RWX), (NASDAQ: SPY), (NASDAQ: IYR), (NASDAQ: VIG), (NASDAQ: IDV), (NASDAQ: VYM), (NASDAQ: EEM), (NASDAQ: PID), (NASDAQ: EFA), (NASDAQ: FVD), (NASDAQ: DVY), (NASDAQ: PEY), (NASDAQ: SDY), (NASDAQ: PFF)Disclosure:
MyPlanIQ does not have any business relationship with the company or companies mentioned in this article. It does not set up their retirement plans. The performance data of portfolios mentioned above are obtained through historical simulation and are hypothetical.
- Riding High with Global Economy, International REITs Offer Currency and Inflation Hedge
03/10/2011
- Dividend ETFs: Public REITs Offer Good Value While Economy Recovers
03/04/2011
- Dividend Stock ETFs All Dropped, But Showing Defensive
02/24/2011
- Initiating Tracking of US Subclasses
02/22/2011
- RSP Leads US Large Cap Blend Equities
02/14/2011
- Yield Quest Turns from Bonds to High Yield Stocks
12/16/2010
- ETF's for Income Nov 29
11/29/2010
- ETF's for Income Rebound Well
11/23/2010
- High Dividend Stock ETFs for Income Producing Portfolios
11/12/2010
- Retirement Income Portfolio Building Using ETFs and Asset Allocation Strategies
11/12/2010