Investor fears of an inverted yield curve sent the markets on a volatile ride in March, which poses a challenge for investors, particularly those who want to satiate their appetite for yield via exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that offer dividends.
Fears of a global economic slowdown was compounded by market noise of an inverted yield curve blaring from the bond community. The short-term 3-month and longer-term 10-year yield curve inversion has been the prime focus the past week–an event that hasn’t been seen since 2007–just ahead of the financial crisis.
The spread between the 3-month and 10-year notes fell below 10 basis points for the first time in over a decade. This strong recession indicator contrasted a more upbeat central bank, but investors were quick to sense the cautiousness.
The inversion came after the central bank decided to keep interest rates unchanged last month. In move that was widely anticipated by most market experts, the Federal Reserve elected to keep rates unchanged, holding its policy rate in a range between 2.25 percent and 2.5 percent.
In addition, the central bank alluded to no more rate hikes for the rest of 2019 after initially forecasting two in December of last year. Four rate hikes came during the 2018–the last of which was during the peak of fourth quarter sell-offs in U.S. equities.
In this current market landscape, what are the best ETFs for dividend yields thus far this year?
As investors become more strategic in their capital allocation, check out these 15 best performing dividend yield ETF options YTD, as of April 24, 2019:
List as of April 22, 2019 via ETFdb.
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