Is FlexShares Quality Dividend ETF (QDF) a Strong ETF Right Now?
Launched on 12/14/2012, the FlexShares Quality Dividend ETF (QDF) is a smart beta exchange traded fund offering broad exposure to the Style Box - All Cap Blend category of the market.
What Are Smart Beta ETFs?
The ETF industry has long been dominated by products based on market cap weighted indexes, a strategy created to reflect the market or a particular market segment.
Because market cap weighted indexes provide a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns, they work well for investors who believe in market efficiency.
However, some investors believe in the possibility of beating the market through exceptional stock selection, and choose a different type of fund that tracks non-cap weighted strategies: smart beta.
Based on specific fundamental characteristics, or a combination of such, these indexes attempt to pick stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance.
This area offers many different investment choices, such as simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies; however, not all of these strategies can deliver superior results.
Fund Sponsor & Index
Managed by Flexshares, QDF has amassed assets over $1.55 billion, making it one of the larger ETFs in the Style Box - All Cap Blend. This particular fund, before fees and expenses, seeks to match the performance of the Northern Trust Quality Dividend Index.
The Northern Trust Quality Dividend Index is designed to provide exposure to a high-quality income-oriented portfolio of long-only U.S. equity securities, with an emphasis on long-term capital growth and a targeted overall beta that is similar to that of the Northern Trust 1250 Index and the Index are selected based on expected dividend payment and fundamental factors.
Cost & Other Expenses
Investors should also pay attention to an ETF's expense ratio. Lower cost products will produce better results than those with a higher cost, assuming all other metrics remain the same.
Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.37%, making it on par with most peer products in the space.
It's 12-month trailing dividend yield comes in at 2.25%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
It is important to delve into an ETF's holdings before investing despite the many upsides to these kinds of funds like diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.
For QDF, it has heaviest allocation in the Information Technology sector --about 30.50% of the portfolio --while Financials and Healthcare round out the top three.
Taking into account individual holdings, Apple Inc (AAPL) accounts for about 9.45% of the fund's total assets, followed by Microsoft Corp Common Stock Usd 0.00000625 (MSFT) and Procter &no.38; Gamble Co/the Common Stock Usd 0 (PG).
The top 10 holdings account for about 34.12% of total assets under management.
Performance and Risk
Year-to-date, the FlexShares Quality Dividend ETF return is roughly 9.97% so far, and is up about 18.31% over the last 12 months (as of 10/18/2023). QDF has traded between $48.75 and $60.11 in this past 52-week period.
The fund has a beta of 0.98 and standard deviation of 16.18% for the trailing three-year period, which makes QDF a medium risk choice in this particular space. With about 143 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk.
Alternatives
FlexShares Quality Dividend ETF is a reasonable option for investors seeking to outperform the Style Box - All Cap Blend segment of the market. However, there are other ETFs in the space which investors could consider.
IShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF (ITOT) tracks S&P Total Market Index and the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) tracks CRSP US Total Market Index. IShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF has $44.45 billion in assets, Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF has $309.77 billion. ITOT has an expense ratio of 0.03% and VTI charges 0.03%.
Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Style Box - All Cap Blend.
Bottom Line
To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center.
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FlexShares Quality Dividend ETF (QDF): ETF Research Reports
Apple Inc. (AAPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Procter & Gamble Company (The) (PG) : Free Stock Analysis Report
Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI): ETF Research Reports
iShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF (ITOT): ETF Research Reports
