Despite some rocky trading as of late, major U.S. benchmarks are actually still having a pretty good year. In fact, SPY is trading higher by roughly 8% so far in 2014, a level that is on par with what the U.S. market usually does on average in a full calendar year.
Yet while this is a pretty good return so far for the year, there are several more specialized ETFs that have easily trounced this return level. While many of these are in higher risk sectors like biotechnology or recently-in-focus MLPs, several dividend ETFs have also stolen the show.
These big yielders have all beaten SPY's return so far in 2014 (all have added at least 12% YTD), while providing higher amounts of income as well. And the best part is, should the economy slide in the near term, their bigger payouts should help to cushion the blow a little bit, especially when compared to higher growth stocks and funds which have been the other leaders of the market lately (see 4 Excellent Dividend ETFs for Income and Stability).
Below, we highlight three such ‘dividend ETF all-stars' for your portfolio. These not only have beaten the market's return YTD but pay out better yields than SPY too, making them interesting choices for investors looking for both outperformance potential and income in today's market:
First Trust NASDAQ Technology Dividend Index Fund (NASDAQ: TDIV)
For a different type of dividend ETF, investors can look to TDIV which tracks the NASDAQ Technology Dividend Index. This has been a winning (and overlooked) dividend strategy for investors in 2014 as the fund has added 12.3% YTD while its 30-Day SEC yield comes in at 2.7%, though the index yield is 3.3%.
There are currently about 90 stocks in this fund with large caps ...
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