Designed to provide broad exposure to the European Equity ETFs category of the market, the WisdomTree Europe SmallCap Dividend ETF (DFE) is a smart beta exchange traded fund launched on 06/16/2006.
What Are Smart Beta ETFs?
Products that are based on market cap weighted indexes, which are strategies designed to reflect a specific market segment or the market as a whole, have traditionally dominated the ETF industry.
Investors who believe in market efficiency should consider market cap indexes, as they replicate market returns in a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way.
If you're the kind of investor who would rather try and beat the market through good stock selection, then smart beta funds are your best choice; this fund class is known for tracking non-cap weighted strategies.
This kind of index follows this same mindset, as it attempts to pick stocks that have better chances of risk-return performance; non-cap weighted strategies base selection on certain fundamental characteristics, or a mix of such characteristics.
This area offers many different investment choices, such as simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies; however, not all of these strategies can deliver superior results.
Fund Sponsor & Index
DFE is managed by Wisdomtree, and this fund has amassed over $211.24 million, which makes it one of the average sized ETFs in the European Equity ETFs. This particular fund, before fees and expenses, seeks to match the performance of the WisdomTree Europe SmallCap Dividend Index.
The WisdomTree Europe SmallCap Dividend Index is a fundamentally weighted index that measures the performance of the small-capitalization segment of the European dividend-paying market.
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.
With on par with most peer products in the space, this ETF has annual operating expenses of 0.58%.
It has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 5.44%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure which minimizes single stock risk, it is still important to look into a fund's holdings before investing. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.
Looking at individual holdings, Postnl Nv (PNL) accounts for about 3.25% of total assets, followed by Banca Farmafactoring Spa (BFF) and Diversified Energy Co (DEC).