With growing risks in over valued segments of the markets, income-minded investors may look to an actively managed dividend exchange traded fund to target potentially better picks.
The AdvisorShares Athena High Dividend ETF (NYSEArca: DIVI) has returned 30.0% over the past year, compared to the S&P 500’s 25.0% rise and the MSCI ACWI ex-USA Index’s 19.3% gain.
The actively managed high dividend ETF can help investors generate high income potential, capture capital growth and diversify through global exposure.
According to AdvisorShares, the high-dividend focus may also help diminish the potential issue of portfolio devaluation in periods of rising interest rates and achieve capital growth, which can hedge against inflation with growing income and growing capital. The strategy may be beneficial in the year ahead, as President Donald Trump’s economic policies could fuel inflation and the Federal Reserve looks to hike interest rates in an attempt to head off an overheating economy.
DIVI takes an interesting approach to dividend stocks, selecting all manner of yield generating equities that have already been vetted by active mutual fund managers.
Specifically, the active manager C. Thomas Howard, CEO, CIO and director of research at AthenaInvest, uses behavioral finance to identify high-conviction picks from fund managers. Howard utilizes patented behavioral research and statistical models to screen for the most attractive global companies for capital growth and dividend yield, selecting securities in the top relative weight positions among active equity fund investment managers based on strategy, consistency and conviction.
Th investment process analyzes behavioral indicators of active equity fund investment managers, which can be predictive of performance and produces an output of stocks not influenced by earnings announcements, headline risk, or any other momentum or traditional market valuation techniques, according to AdvisorShares.
The portfolio also focuses on high-dividend-paying companies and weights components based on dividends. DIVI comes with a 3.64% 12-month yield.
North American companies make up a large portion of the portfolio, accounting for 79% of DIVI’s holdings, followed by Latin America 14%, developing Asia 3%, emerging Asia 2%, developing Europe 2% and Africa/Middle East 1%.
Sector weights include consumer cyclical 28.4%, energy 13.1%, utilities 12.6%, financial services 12.0%, real estate 11.8%, telecom services 9.8%, industrials 8.0% and basic materials 4.4%. The active ETF does not include exposure to tech, health care nor consumer defensive sectors.
For more information on active strategies, visit our actively managed ETFs category.