ETF Talk: Protect Your Portfolio with a Super-DIVidend Hero!

The market is a fickle handmaiden. She can move higher on a whim, and she can sink on a mere whisper.

As we barrel headlong into the final weeks of a most eventful 2025, the smart money continues to dance with AI enthusiasm, Fed uncertainty, geopolitical angst and the omnipresence of deep uncertainty over the fate of stocks and the economy in the year to come.

In times like these, it’d be great to have a strong superhero to hold up one’s portfolio. Not a bird, not a plane, but a dividend ETF capable of offering stability — the Global X SuperDividend U.S. ETF (DIV).

DIV tracks an equally weighted index of 50 high-dividend, low-volatility securities, combining a low-volatility strategy with a high-dividend-yield mandate.

The fund’s index pulls from the entire U.S. equity space, and screens for firms with large, consistent dividends and low volatility to a market benchmark of Indxx, a global index provider. The strategy is to identify companies that have paid consistent dividends during the last two years and are perceived to have reduced relative volatility, as measured by their beta, which measures the volatility of a security or portfolio compared to an index. These stocks are then ranked, and those with the highest dividend yields are selected for the portfolio.

The equally weighted, 50-firm portfolio includes MLPs and REITs, two pass-through structures with unique tax implications. This gives DIV pumped-up exposure to financials and energy, while the low-volatility strategy helps explain exposure to utilities. The index is reconstituted annually, subject to quarterly reviews.

Exclusive Three Defense Investments with Potential to Outperform

The fund has assets under management of around $643.00 million and an expense ratio of 0.45%. It is currently up 1.69% over the last month, 0.85% over the last three months and 3.44% year to date.

Top holdings include Global Ship Lease, Inc. Class A (NYSE: GSL), 3.40%; Ardagh Metal Packaging S.A (NYSE: AMBP), 3.15%; Omega Healthcare Investors, Inc. (NYSE: OHI), 2.72%; NorthWestern Energy Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: NWE), 2.64%; National Health Investors, Inc. (NYSE: NHI), 2.47%; Northwest Natural Holding Co. (NYSE: NWN), 2.39%; CBL & Associates Properties, Inc. (NYSE: CBL), 2.38%; Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE: MO), 2.36%; Spire Inc. (NYSE: SR), 2.36% and Evergy, Inc. (NASDAQ: EVRG), 2.35%.

Chart from stockcharts.com.

Now, while we all need a hero from time to time, the hero we call upon to save our day may not be the right hero for everyone. Investors should always do their due diligence before adding any stock, fund or ETF to their personal portfolios.

As always, I am happy to answer any of your questions about ETFs, so do not hesitate to send me an email. You just may see your question answered in a future ETF Talk.

Jim Woods

Jim Woods is a 20-plus-year veteran of the markets with varied experience as a broker, hedge fund trader, financial writer, author and newsletter editor. Jim is the editor of Forecasts & Strategies, Tactical Trader, TNT Trader, Five Star Trader, Bullseye Stock Trader, and The Deep Woods. His books include co-authoring, “Billion Dollar Green: Profit from the Eco Revolution,” and “The Wealth Shield: How to Invest and Protect Your Money from Another Stock Market Crash, Financial Crisis or Global Economic Collapse.” He’s also ghostwritten many books and articles, as well as edited content for some of the investment industry’s biggest luminaries. His articles have appeared on many leading financial websites, including StockInvestor.com, InvestorPlace.com, Main Street Investor, MarketWatch, Street Authority, Human Events and many others. Jim formerly worked with Investor’s Business Daily founder William J. O’Neil, helping to author training courses in the CANSLIM stock-picking methodology. The independent firm TipRanks rates Jim the No. 3 financial blogger in the world (out of more than 6,000). TipRanks calculates that, since 2012, he's made 361 successful recommendations out of 499 total, earning a success rate of 72% and a +15.3% average return per recommendation. He is known in professional and personal circles as “The Renaissance Man,” because his expertise includes such varied fields as composing and performing music; Western horsemanship, combat marksmanship, martial arts, auto racing and bodybuilding. Jim holds a BA in philosophy from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is a former U.S. Army paratrooper. A self-described “radical for capitalism,” he celebrates the virtue of making money from his Southern California horse ranch.