No market is on par with the U.S. when it comes to total dividends paid, but Europe does offer opportunity for income investors.
For the first time, global dividends topped $1 trillion ($1.03 trillion to be precise) last year. U.S. stocks were big factors in that equation with S&P 500 payouts soaring to record of nearly $312 billion. Impressive, but ““British listed companies paid $102. 1 billion in dividends last year, and since 2009 have paid roughly $441 billion,” according to the Independent. [The Case for U.K. Dividends]
That is a massive percentage of the global dividend pie given the size of the U.K. economy. Ex-U.K., European dividends have risen 8% since 2009, indicating the continent has the potential to deliver robust payout growth going forward.
However, the Europe dividend ETF niche has previously been limited in terms of number of offerings. The WisdomTree Europe SmallCap Dividend Fund (NYSEArca: DFE), last year’s top-performing Europe ETF, has dominated the Europe dividend ETF story with some consideration paid to the First Trust STOXX European Select Dividend Index Fund (NYSEArca: FDD). [WisdomTree Small-Cap Europe ETF Tops $1B in AUM]
Investors now have more ETF options for accessing European dividend payers thanks to Wednesday’s launch of the WisdomTree Europe Dividend Growth Fund (NYSEArca: EUDG).
EUDG tracks the WisdomTree Europe Dividend Growth Index, “a fundamentally weighted index that measures the performance of dividend-paying common stocks with growth characteristics selected from the WisdomTree DEFA Index,” according to WisdomTree.