Patrick Sanders, The Motley Fool
Sun, April 12, 2026 astatine 1:01 PM CDT 4 min read
When looking for casual ways to adhd diversification to a portfolio, 1 of the smartest moves you tin marque is to dip into the satellite of exchange-traded funds, oregon ETFs -- those astonishing funds that clasp baskets of stocks and commercialized conscionable similar a mean equity.
ETFs travel successful each sizes and flavors. You tin get an ETF that tracks an full index, oregon you tin get thing much specific, similar a thematic ETF that covers a niche. Some funds are specifically for income investors seeking to invest successful stocks with a beardown dividend yield.
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While scale ETFs are passively managed, meaning that they purpose to duplicate the show of the underlying index, you tin besides find actively managed ETFs, with experts astatine the helm to take which stocks volition beryllium successful the money and astatine what weighting successful bid to person market-beating returns.
Actively managed funds travel with a outgo -- they thin to person a higher disbursal ratio than passively managed ETFs. Common consciousness would dictate that the returns of these funds should much than marque up for the added disbursal incurred by investors. But if you look hard enough, you tin find immoderate passively managed ETFs, specified arsenic the Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (NYSEMKT: SCHD), that bash highly good and person outperformed galore fashionable actively managed funds implicit the past decade.
The Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 Index, which comprises 100 U.S.-based companies with astatine slightest 10 consecutive years of dividend payments. That provides investors with vulnerability to a assortment of sectors, with user staples having the top exposure.
And the stocks successful this ETF correspond immoderate of the astir recognizable companies successful the world. The apical 10 holdings correspond 40% of the ETF's full weighting.
| UnitedHealth Group | 4.3% | $3.7 billion |
| Chevron | 4.26% | $3.7 billion |
| Texas Instruments | 4.24% | $3.6 billion |
| Merck | 4.2% | $3.6 billion |
| Coca-Cola | 4.06% | $3.5 billion |
| ConocoPhillips | 4.05% | $3.5 billion |
| PepsiCo | 3.88% | $3.3 billion |
| Verizon Communications | 3.85% | $3.3 billion |
| Amgen | 3.79% | $3.2 billion |
| Abbott Laboratories | 3.76% | $3.2 billion |
Source: Schwab Asset Management (weightings arsenic of April 8, 2026).
The money has an disbursal ratio of conscionable 0.06%, oregon $6 annually for each $10,000 invested. And its dividend output of 3.4% is overmuch higher than the 1.1% output of the S&P 500.

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