Designed to provide broad exposure to the Style Box - Large Cap Value category of the market, the iShares Core High Dividend ETF (HDV) is a smart beta exchange traded fund launched on 03/29/2011.
What Are Smart Beta ETFs?
The ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on market capitalization weighted indexes that are designed to represent the market or a particular segment of the market.
Market cap weighted indexes work great for investors who believe in market efficiency. They provide a low-cost, convenient and transparent way of replicating market returns.
However, some investors believe in the possibility of beating the market through exceptional stock selection, and choose a different type of fund that tracks non-cap weighted strategies: smart beta.
These indexes attempt to select stocks that have better chances of risk-return performance, based on certain fundamental characteristics or a combination of such characteristics.
Methodologies like equal-weighting, one of the simplest options out there, fundamental weighting, and volatility/momentum based weighting are all choices offered to investors in this space, but not all of them can deliver superior returns.
Fund Sponsor & Index
The fund is managed by Blackrock, and has been able to amass over $12.23 billion, which makes it one of the larger ETFs in the Style Box - Large Cap Value. HDV, before fees and expenses, seeks to match the performance of the Morningstar Dividend Yield Focus Index.
The Morningstar Dividend Yield Focus Index offers exposure to high quality U.S. domiciled companies that have had strong financial health and an ability to sustain above average dividend payouts.
Cost & Other Expenses
For ETF investors, expense ratios are an important factor when considering a fund's return; in the long-term, cheaper funds actually have the ability to outperform their more expensive cousins if all other things remain the same.
Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.08%, making it one of the least expensive products in the space.
It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 3.13%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
ETFs offer diversified exposure and thus minimize single stock risk, but it is still important to delve into a fund's holdings before investing. Most ETFs are very transparent products and many disclose their holdings on a daily basis.
HDV's heaviest allocation is in the Healthcare sector, which is about 26.40% of the portfolio. Its Energy and Consumer Staples round out the top three.
When you look at individual holdings, Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM) accounts for about 6.93% of the fund's total assets, followed by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Verizon Communications Inc (VZ).