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MARKETS LIVE BLOG:

STOCKS EXTEND GAINS AS RESULTS SEASON KICKS INTO HIGH GEAR

Tech-focused investors prepare for fresh wave of earnings highlighted by struggling Tesla

Is WisdomTree International Hedged Quality Dividend Growth Fund (IHDG) a Strong ETF Right Now?

Sweta Killa

Launched on 05/07/2014, the WisdomTree International Hedged Quality Dividend Growth Fund (IHDG) is a smart beta exchange traded fund offering broad exposure to the Broad Developed World ETFs category of the market.

What Are Smart Beta ETFs?

The ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on market capitalization weighted indexes that are designed to represent the market or a particular segment of the market.

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.

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If you're the kind of investor who would rather try and beat the market through good stock selection, then smart beta funds are your best choice; this fund class is known for tracking non-cap weighted strategies.

These indexes attempt to select stocks that have better chances of risk-return performance, based on certain fundamental characteristics or a combination of such characteristics.

While this space offers a number of choices to investors, including simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies, not all these strategies have been able to deliver superior results.

Fund Sponsor & Index

Managed by Wisdomtree, IHDG has amassed assets over $450.30 M, making it one of the average sized ETFs in the Broad Developed World ETFs. This particular fund seeks to match the performance of the WisdomTree International Hedged Quality Dividend Growth Index before fees and expenses.

The WisdomTree International Hedged Quality Dividend Growth Index is designed to provide exposure to the developed market companies while at the same time neutralizing exposure to fluctuations between the value of foreign currencies and the U.S. dollar.

Cost & Other Expenses

Expense ratios are an important factor in the return of an ETF and in the long-term, cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive cousins, other things remaining the same.

With one of the more expensive products in the space, this ETF has annual operating expenses of 0.58%.

IHDG's 12-month trailing dividend yield is 1.12%.

Sector Exposure and Top Holdings

Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure which minimizes single stock risk, it is still important to look into a fund's holdings before investing. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

Taking into account individual holdings, Industria De Diseno Textil (ITX) accounts for about 4.53% of the fund's total assets, followed by Unilever Nv (UNA) and Rio Tinto Plc (RIO).

The top 10 holdings account for about 31.38% of total assets under management.

Performance and Risk

So far this year, IHDG has gained about 20.35%, and was up about 2.77% in the last one year (as of 07/19/2019). During this past 52-week period, the fund has traded between $26.92 and $33.60.

The fund has a beta of 0.76 and standard deviation of 11.13% for the trailing three-year period, which makes IHDG a medium risk choice in this particular space. With about 288 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk.

Alternatives

WisdomTree International Hedged Quality Dividend Growth Fund is a reasonable option for investors seeking to outperform the Broad Developed World ETFs segment of the market. However, there are other ETFs in the space which investors could consider.

IShares MSCI EAFE ETF (EFA) tracks MSCI EAFE Index and the iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF (IEFA) tracks MSCI EAFE Investable Market Index. IShares MSCI EAFE ETF has $60.79 B in assets, iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF has $65.57 B. EFA has an expense ratio of 0.31% and IEFA charges 0.08%.

Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Broad Developed World ETFs.

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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WisdomTree International Hedged Quality Dividend Growth Fund (IHDG): ETF Research Reports
 
iShares MSCI EAFE ETF (EFA): ETF Research Reports
 
Rio Tinto PLC (RIO) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF (IEFA): ETF Research Reports
 
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