Gold prices jumped to an eight-month high on Thursday despite global equities falling more than 1% as geopolitical tensions heightened with President Joe Biden saying that there was every indication that Russia planned to attack Ukraine.
One stock that has fared especially well is Colorado-based Newmont Corporation (NEM), the world’s largest gold mining company. The stock was up 5.34% as of Thursday afternoon, and is up 11.74% over the past five days as much of the market has dipped.
Meanwhile, the major indexes — Nasdaq, S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average — are all down over 1.5% for the day and down over 2.5% over a five-day period, as of Thursday afternoon.
A fund that offers exposure to Newmont and other compelling securities is the ALPS Sector Dividend Dogs ETF (SDOG).
SDOG offers exposure to a strategy that is largely similar to the popular “Dogs of the Dow” approach, which involves a portfolio consisting of the 10 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average with the highest dividend yields. SDOG, however, casts a much wider net by drawing from the S&P 500 as its universe of potential stocks, according to ETF Database.
The fund maintains equal allocations to each of 10 sectors, making it very different from many dividend-focused products, which tend to have biases towards utilities and financials. The portfolio also consists of equal weighting to each individual component stock, which might be appealing to those who favor equal-weight strategies.
SDOG can be a useful tool for achieving a diverse portfolio of large-cap U.S. stocks while also seeking to capture a meaningful dividend yield.
SDOG will generally maintain a dividend yield that is much greater than that of the S&P 500, and will often exceed many other dividend-focused ETFs as well.
SDOG carries an expense ratio of 40 basis points and has an annual dividend yield of 3.37%, according to ETF Database.
For more news, information, and strategy, visit the ETF Building Blocks Channel.
