WisdomTree launched a family of six U.S. dividend Funds on June 16, 2006, nearly nine years ago. We have to say that we are very excited about how they have performed.
Five-Year Performance Has Been Very Strong
Each of these six Funds has beaten at least 91% of its respective Morningstar category over the five-year period that ended December 31, 2014. The WisdomTree Dividend ex-Financials Fund (DTN) and WisdomTree Equity Income Fund (DHS) deserve special mention, having beaten 99% and 96% of the large-value category over this period.
2014—A Difficult Year for Active Managers
Active managers found 2014 a difficult year, and these six dividend funds capitalized, beating at least 93% of their respective Morningstar categories. WisdomTree Total Dividend Fund (DTD), WisdomTree LargeCap Dividend Fund (DLN), DTN and DHS were helped by the fact that the underlying Indexes that they track tend to tilt significant weight toward different types of large-cap dividend payers, which outperformed mid- and small caps over this period.1 WisdomTree MidCap Dividend Fund (DON) and WisdomTree SmallCap Dividend Fund (DES) track the performance of Indexes that generally tend to have significant exposure to real estate investment trusts (REITs), a part of U.S. markets that showed strong performance in 2014.
Outperformance vs. Active Managers and Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)
While we are proud of our performance against the cap-weighted index benchmarks, our track record against active managers is equally impressive. Figures 1a and 1b illustrate how our Funds stacked up by Morningstar category, which includes active managers and ETFs.
Figure 1a: WisdomTree U.S. Dividend ETFs: Strong Performance in Respective Morningstar Categories
Percent of Peers Beaten in Respective Morningstar Category, as of December 31,2014
Figure 1b: Number of Managers in Each Respective Category, as of December 31, 2014
