In this blog we have developed a series of articles on mutual funds, since these should be the main investment vehicle for individual investors.
We also said how investors should choose and select mutual funds.
To make this theme clearer and more useful for investors, we wanted to present some of the major mutual funds, as an example and for reference to their characteristics.
There are tens of thousands of mutual funds worldwide. It’s 8,000 only in the US.
Even only for the main categories of funds, such as stocks or bonds, global or developed countries, there are thousands.
In addition, it is necessary to meet that not all funds are available for distribution in the country of each investor.
The Best Of Mutual Funds is a series that presents some of the main mutual funds marketed in the world, grouped by categories (see information note at the end of the article).
To facilitate the analysis and selection of the investor, in each of these articles we group mutual funds by types or categories, registration countries and currency denomination.
This Best Of is not intended, nor does it constitute a recommendation.
It is a sample of some of the largest funds in each category.
There are other funds that may have similar features and be better than these.
Thus, given the available offer, it is up to each investor to decide which funds will be best suited to their case.
In the Tools folder, a summary form containing a summary description of the main characteristics of the main funds of each category is also presented.
Investment funds covered in this article: Vanguard FTSE All-World High Dividend Yield UCITS ETF VHYL; iShares Euro Dividend UCITS ETF; Shares STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 UCITS ETF (DE); iShares Euro Dividend UCITS ETF; iShares MSCI USA Quality Dividend ESG UCITS ETF; SPDR Dividend Aristocrats (ESG) ETFs; SPDR® S&P® Euro Dividend Aristocrats UCITS ETF (Dist); SPDR® S&P® Global Dividend Aristocrats UCITS ETF (Dist); Euro Stoxx Quality Dividend UCITS ETF 1D; MSCI North America High Dividend Yield UCITS ETF 1C; Amundi ETF MSCI EMU High Dividend UCITS ETF EUR (C)
These are the largest dividend stock mutual funds in terms of assets under management accessible by investors outside the U.S., attracting more capital and investors.
Considering the importance of this market segment, these funds can be part of the stock investment portfolio of any individual investor.
These are the stock funds that pay good dividends.
We know that there is another way of distributing results to shareholders who are buy-backs, which are more tax-efficient and increasingly used.
What matters to the investor is the distributed overall income, whether by dividends or buy-backs.
In a next article we will cover investment funds from buy-backs.
Fund: Vanguard FTSE All-World High Dividend Yield UCITS ETF VHYL
Ticker: VHYL
ISIN: IE00B8GKDB10
Assets under Management (AuM): $3Bn
TER: 0.29%
Benchmark: FTSE All-World High Dividend Yield Index
Currency: USD
Domicile: Ireland
Registered countries: Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Chile, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Singapore
Link: https://www.nl.vanguard/professional/product/etf/equity/9506/ftse-all-world-high-dividend-yield-ucits-etf-usd-distributing
Morningstar Rating: ***
Fund: iShares STOXX Global Select Dividend 100 UCITS ETF (DE)
Ticker: SDGPEX
ISIN: DE000A0F5UH1
Assets under Management (AuM): $2Bn
TER: 0.46%
Benchmark: STOXX® Global Select Dividend 100 Index
Currency: EUR
Domicile: Germany
Registered countries: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Slovak Republic and Switzerland
Link: https://www.blackrock.com/ch/individual/en/products/251973/ishares-stoxx-global-select-dividend-100-ucits-etf-de-fund
Morningstar Rating: **
Fund: iShares Euro Dividend UCITS ETF
Ticker: IDVY
ISIN: IE00B0M62S72
Assets under Management (AuM): $0.8Bn
TER: 0.40%
Benchmark: EURO STOXX® Select Dividend 30
Currency: EUR
Domicile: Ireland
Registered countries: Austria, Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovak Republic, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom
Link: https://www.blackrock.com/ch/individual/en/products/251787/ishares-euro-dividend-ucits-etf
Morningstar Rating: **
Fund: iShares MSCI USA Quality Dividend ESG UCITS ETF
Ticker: QDIV
ISIN: IE00BKM4H312
Assets under Management (AuM): $0.5Bn
TER: 0.35%
Benchmark: MSCI USA High Dividend Yield ESG Reduced Carbon Target Select Index
Currency: USD
Domicile: US
Registered countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom
Link: https://www.blackrock.com/ch/individual/en/products/264660/ishares-msci-usa-dividend-iq-ucits-etf
Morningstar Rating: ***
Fund: SPDR Dividend Aristocrats (ESG) ETFs
Ticker: SPYD
ISIN: IE00B6YX5D40
Assets under Management (AuM): $4.5Bn
TER: 0.35%
Benchmark: S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats Index
Currency: EUR, GBP, USD, CHF
Domicile: US
Registered countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom
Link: https://www.ssga.com/ie/en_gb/institutional/etfs/funds/spdr-sp-us-dividend-aristocrats-ucits-etf-dist-spyd-gy
Morningstar Rating: NR
Fund: SPDR® S&P® Euro Dividend Aristocrats UCITS ETF (Dist)
Ticker: SPYW
ISIN: IE00B5M1WJ87
Assets under Management (AuM): $1Bn
TER: 0.27%
Benchmark: Dividend Growth Spliced Index
Currency: EUR
Domicile: Ireland
Registered countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom
Link: S&P Euro High Yield Dividend Aristocrats Index
Morningstar Rating: ***
Link: https://www.ssga.com/de/en_gb/institutional/etfs/funds/spdr-sp-euro-dividend-aristocrats-ucits-etf-dist-spyw-gy
Fund: SPDR® S&P® Global Dividend Aristocrats UCITS ETF (Dist)
Ticker: ZPRG
ISIN: IE00B9CQXS71
Assets under Management (AuM): $1.2Bn
TER: 0.45%
Benchmark: S&P Global Dividend Aristocrats Quality Income Index
Currency: EUR, GBP, USD, CHF
Domicile: Ireland
Registered countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom
Link: https://www.ssga.com/ie/en_gb/institutional/etfs/funds/spdr-sp-global-dividend-aristocrats-ucits-etf-dist-zprg-gy
Morningstar Rating: **
Fund: Euro Stoxx Quality Dividend UCITS ETF 1D
Ticker: SXQD50R
ISIN: LU0292095535
Assets under Management (AuM): $0.5Bn
TER: 0.30%
Benchmark: Euro Stoxx Quality Dividend 50 index
Currency: EUR
Domicile: Luxembourg
Registered countries: Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Spain, France, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, United Kingdom, Italy
Link: https://etf.dws.com/en-lu/LU0292095535-euro-stoxx-quality-dividend-ucits-etf-1d/
Morningstar Rating: ***
Fund: MSCI North America High Dividend Yield UCITS ETF 1C
Ticker: M1NADY
ISIN: IE00BH361H73
Assets under Management (AuM): $0.1Bn
TER: 0.39%
Benchmark: MSCI North America High Dividend Yield index
Currency: USD
Domicile: Ireland
Registered countries: Austria, Luxembourg, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, Norway, France, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, Switzerland, Italy, United Kingdom
Link: https://etf.dws.com/en-lu/IE00BH361H73-msci-north-america-high-dividend-yield-ucits-etf-1c/
Morningstar Rating: ***
Fund: Amundi ETF MSCI EMU High Dividend UCITS ETF EUR (C)
Ticker: CD8
ISIN: FR0010717090
Assets under Management (AuM): $0.15Bn
TER: 0.30%
Benchmark: MSCI EMU High Dividend Yield index
Currency: USD
Home: France
Registered countries: Germany, France, United Kingdom, Netherlands
Link: https://www.amundietf.fr/professional/product/view/FR0010717090
Morningstar Rating: ****
The following are links to all the mutual funds mentioned:
Informational/explanatory note:
In this series we will present many of the best mutual funds available in the various geographies for the individual investor, by each category and in a structured way.
There are tens if not even hundreds of thousands of mutual funds available worldwide.
It would be unthinkable to analyze even the vast majority of them.
That is why it is necessary to establish criteria to focus the analysis. The criteria we have taken up are as follows:
- Grouping by categories of funds;
- Superior performance in terms of profitability and risk, whenever possible using the rating;
- Availability and accessibility for the investor;
- Size and reputation of management companies.
The various funds are classified by several multiple categories in terms of their investment object:
- 4 main categories per asset, including stocks, bonds, blend or balanced, and others;
- 7 categories by geography, covering global, regional (US, Europe, emerging markets, Japan, the UK and Germany);
- 2 categories in relation to the management model, active or passive.
In this sense, at the limit we could have up to about 56 categories (=4x7x2), but we will only cover the most important ones.
We also want to address other important factors such as the availability of mutual funds to the individual investor of the various countries of the world (domicile or origin of the investor) and the currency of denomination.
As we have seen in another article, the investment in stocks must be made in the investments currency (i.e. the securities that constitute its object or destination), while the investment in bonds must be made in the investor’s currency (from the treasury of the funds or from the origin).
We will start with stocks, in the two largest geographies, world and USA, and addressing for each the two management models.
Next we will move on to bonds, to 3 geographies, world, USA and Eurozone, also covering the 2 management models.
Then we’ll cover the following.
For each case, we will consider the availability of funds in the investor’s home or origin market, seeking to serve the American and European markets (giving note of access by other countries whenever possible).
For each fund, we present its main practical characteristics, in order to allow easy identification, knowledge and investment, namely the designation, the value of assets under management, the country of domicile, and a link to the most detailed information.
The ticker or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify the securities publicly traded of a particular company on a given stock market.
The ISIN or International Securities Identification Number is a 12-digit alphanumeric code that identifies a specific security.
CUSIP is a unique identifier representing the Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures and is used to identify securities registered in the U.S. and Canada.
The expense ratio is the rate of management fees associated with the administration of mutual funds.
There are other costs associated with investing in funds, such as trading fees, legal fees, audit fees, and other operating expenses (e.g. deposit and custody of securities).
The sum of all fees associated with investment in funds is called a total expense ratio and, as we have seen in other articles, it is very important in the analysis and selection of funds.
