8 hours ago
1
Selena Maranjian, The Motley Fool
Sun, February 15, 2026 astatine 12:50 PM CST 4 min read
Want to cognize what my favourite dividend-focused exchange-traded money (ETF) is? Well, it's the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (NYSEMKT: SCHD). It's worthy considering for your portfolio due to the fact that dividends tin beryllium almighty wealthiness builders -- particularly erstwhile you plow them into much shares of stock.
Here's a look astatine the powerfulness of dividends and wherefore you mightiness see this ETF. (Remember, an ETF is simply a money that trades similar a stock.)
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To spot wherefore I'm a instrumentality of dividend-paying stocks, cheque retired the table:
| Dividend growers and initiators | 10.24% |
| Dividend payers | 9.20% |
| No alteration successful dividend policy | 6.75% |
| Dividend non-payers | 4.31% |
| Dividend shrinkers and eliminators | (0.89%) |
| Equal-weighted S&P 500 index | 7.65% |
Data source: Ned Davis Research and Hartford Funds.
See? Dividend payers are nary slouches. They tin present a batch of passive income.
The Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 index, which holds astir 100 cautiously selected stocks with way records of paying dividends for astatine slightest 10 years -- and which besides look to beryllium tied to high-quality companies. Here's however the Schwab ETF has performed successful caller years:
| Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF | 3.5% | 10.91% | 13.55% | 12.30%* |
| Vanguard S&P 500 ETF | 1.1% | 13.82% | 16.09% | 13.77% |
Source: Morningstar.com, arsenic of Feb. 9, 2026.
*as of inception date, Oct. 20, 2011
I included the show of a low-fee S&P 500 scale money for comparison, and you tin spot that the Schwab ETF isn't acold disconnected from its show portion delivering a lot more income. Better still, steadfast and increasing dividend payers thin to summation their payouts implicit time. Here are the ETF's caller apical holdings, which precocious made up astir 42% of the fund's value:
| Lockheed Martin | 4.60% |
| Bristol-Myers Squibb | 4.29% |
| Texas Instruments | 4.27% |
| Chevron | 4.21% |
| Merck | 4.20% |
| ConocoPhillips | 4.13% |
| PepsiCo | 4.06% |
| Verizon Communications | 4.01% |
| Altria | 3.95% |
| Coca-Cola | 3.93% |
Data source: Morningstar.com, arsenic of Feb. 7, 2026.
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