Do you know what is in your dividend ETF?

ConocoPhillips’ announcement that it was cutting its dividend by two-thirds was a bit of a surprise, since it was the first major oil company to make the cut. It’s also got investors investing in dividend paying ETFs scrambling to look at what’s under the hood of their investments.

Look at dividend ETFs and you will notice a very wide disparity in terms of the energy exposure:

Dividend ETFs with highest Energy exposure:

• iShares Core High Dividend 20.4%
• Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity 12.6%
• Vanguard High Dividend Yield 10.0%
• iShares Select Dividend 8.7%
• SPDR S&P Dividend ETF 3.1%
• Vanguard Dividend Appreciation 1.3%

This is a good example of the fact that ETFs are not all the same, even if they have the same theme.