Any thoughts on these? DES DFE DGRW DGRE DGRS

[hendi_alex]

All are characterized as dividend growth stocks. From a brief look at holdings, as much as I could tell, their names should really be 'Total Return' funds. As all pay dividends, but the dividends themselves are not necessarily growing or growing very fast. To me, the ones that I reviewed, seemed to be companies that pay a dividend and which have the characteristics of growth stocks. Any one have a different take than that? DES pays the highest yield at 3.6% according to yahoo.

[EricL]

(10-04-2013, 06:59 PM)hendi_alex Wrote: All are characterized as dividend growth stocks. From a brief look at holdings, as much as I could tell, their names should really be 'Total Return' funds. As all pay dividends, but the dividends themselves are not necessarily growing or growing very fast. To me, the ones that I reviewed, seemed to be companies that pay a dividend and which have the characteristics of growth stocks. Any one have a different take than that? DES pays the highest yield at 3.6% according to yahoo.

I think this article breaks down the shortfalls of dividend ETFs pretty well.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1638952-...etfs-doing

[Kerim]

Good find, Eric. Money quote from the article:

Quote:WisdomTree's dividend funds are characterized by relatively low yields and inconsistent dividend growth histories that fall short of what many dividend growth investors achieve on their own.

I've done no digging into the tickers myself as yet, but have a hard time imagining even finding enough upside in a dividend fund to overcome the costs. Maybe I can be dismissed as having drunk the "DG kool aid," but it is an approach to investing where I think individual investors can beat the funds.

There's a "dividend" fund in my 401k that I looked at closely once (don't remember which one right now), but it paled next to my own portfolio.

[EricL]

Another good recent article from SA discussing funds vs. individual stocks.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1714932-...ing_notify

[hendi_alex]

I tend to prefer the small basket approach, of hitting a sector with two or three individual tickers. However, for exposure to exotic markets, for exposure to bonds, for exposure to sectors with complicated business structures, and finally when looking for a needle in the haystack home run among small caps, I may opt for an ETF, all of which have very modest fees as compared to any other fund structure.