Although U.S. stocks have traded noticeably higher this year, dividend investing is getting almost as much, if not more attention than some high-beta, growth sectors. Yet despite thousands of positive dividend actions by U.S. companies this year and billions of dollars of inflows to dividend ETFs, just one in five S&P 500 companies had dividend yields above 10-year U.S. Treasuries as of September 25, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Yields on 10-year Treasuries have declined in recent weeks, but at 2.64%, that yield is still well above some popular dividend ETFs. For example, the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (NYSEArca: VIG) yields just 2.16%. The new RevenueShares Ultra Dividend Fund (NYSEArca: RDIV) helps investors solve the low yield dividend ETF conundrum. [Dividend ETFs for the Long-Term]
The RevenueShares Ultra Dividend Fund debuted Tuesday and keeps with its issuer’s tradition of using a revenue weighting methodology. In fact, RDIV is the first revenue weighted ETF. RDIV’s “index is weighted by top-line company revenue to emphasize constituents with high current yields that can be expected to drive price appreciation and dividend growth. RDIV is diversified among growth and income-oriented market sectors, as well as among large- and mid-cap companies,” according to a statement.
RDIV’s underlying index is the RevenueShares Ultra Dividend Index, which sported a whopping 4.92% yield as of September 30, according to the issuer.
The index takes the 60 highest yielding stocks in the S&P 900 (the combined S&P 500 and S&P 400 Mid-Cap Index) based on average quarterly yield for the trailing 12 months and then weights the stocks by company revenue.