Estimates indicate that in 2014, the 20 largest firms listed on Switzerland’s benchmark Swiss Market Index paid a record $37.2 billion in dividends. Another important fact for income investors to consider: Swiss dividends are top heavy, meaning the five largest SMI member firms accounted for 70% of the country’s payouts last year. Those companies, including Nestle and Novartis, are among the Swiss companies must often found in U.S.-listed diversified Europe ETFs.
EWL has a trailing 12-month yield of 2.37%. That is 106 basis points below the dividend yield on the Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF (NYSEArca: VGK). VGK is up almost 7% year-to-date, admirable considering it is not a currency hedged fund.
“While VGK is Pan-European, Switzerland (15 percent of assets) is second only to the United Kingdom (27 percent) in representation. The ETF is more diversified on a sector and holdings basis, but the financials (23 percent), consumer staples (13 percent) and health care (12 percent) sectors are among the largest. The ETF also ranks favorably to S&P Capital IQ for its technical trends and holdings of stocks with low qualitative risk assessments, but has a lower expense ratio than EWL,” said S&P Capital IQ.
The research firm also rates VGK marketweight.
iShares MSCI Switzerland Capped ETF
