The calculation method used to estimate dividends for an ETF on 59fot5.com is based on publicly available information:
- Periodically obtain the portfolio holdings for a particular ETF (exchange traded fund) from the provider's public website (e.g., Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF, Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF).
- Obtain current dividend information for each of the securities in the ETF, from public sources.
- Calculate the estimated annual dividends produced by each security in the ETF.
A few important extra bits of information for you:
- Our dividend estimates are for a point in time only. ETFs periodically rebalance their portfolios (buy or sell shares of the underlying stocks/companies in the ETF) and the dividend-paying companies in the ETF also occasionally change their dividend amounts. Rerunning our calculator will give you an updated dividend estimate for current share counts and company dividend amounts.
- We estimate annual dividends on this site, but most ETFs actually pay their dividend quarterly.
- Actual quarterly payments can be uneven, in other words, not always an even 25% of the annual estimate. This is due, among other reasons, to the companies within the ETF paying dividends at varying times throughout the calendar year.
- Finally, our dividend estimates do not take into account the costs associated with the strategies some ETFs use to manage risk and improve return (futures contracts, for example) or interest earned on cash reserves held by the ETF. These expenses don't usually materially change net dividends paid to investors, but they do affect the calculation and they are not reflected in our estimator.