The iShares Core Dividend Growth ETF is among five ETFs that could each serve as a single buy-and-hold-forever portfolio, chosen according to what an investor wants: growth, dividends, income or simple diversification. x.com
Marcos Milla
Former Analyst at the Federal Reserve, ETF/Stock Newsletter Author
Dividend growth, not yield, is the only dividend strategy worth following, since high-income strategies are mainly marketing and dividends are an inefficient form of compounding. Favor high-quality companies with solid balance sheets that raise dividends every year, such as Cintas, Casey's, Givaudan, S&P Global and L'Oréal. Dividend growth strategies have delivered superior returns to high-dividend ones, with considerably lower drawdowns in stress periods such as the March 2020 Covid shock. … Show more
Quality dividend stocks look like a great place to be over the next few years as the crowded tech trade unwinds. Per @PeterBerezinBCA, in the early dotcom bust tech crashed while the rest of the market rose, so the hedge for stocks was other stocks. A quality dividend basket holds old-economy, cash-generative businesses at sane multiples, while the index hides 50% of its weight in names at 10 times sales. That outweighs a general dislike of dividends as inefficient, taxable compounding. x.com … Show more
Realty Income's 20%+ correction is among the most attractive long-term opportunities in the market, since such drops in a blue-chip dividend REIT typically do not last. The business keeps performing, with AFFO per share up 3.8% year over year and 136 monthly dividend increases since its NYSE listing. The stock sits about 10% below its 200-week moving average with a historically oversold daily RSI. x.com
The S&P 500's record-low dividend yield is bullish and helps explain why the index keeps ripping higher. Tech is now close to 40% of the index, and companies that can turn a dollar of investment into three dollars of growth have little reason to pay it out as a dividend. x.com
SPYI, QQQI, JEPQ, JEPI and QDVO are tier-one income ETFs, pairing high yields with minimal NAV decay and solid records. NEOS' SPYI yields about 10-12% with very stable NAV, using a tax-efficient options strategy that keeps more upside than covered calls; QQQI applies it to the Nasdaq-100 for 13-15%. JPMorgan's JEPQ yields 8-10% via ELNs and JEPI 7-9% with a defensive tilt, while Amplify's QDVO yields 9-11% from growth stocks plus options income. x.com x.com x.com x.com x.com x.com
Low-cost growth ETFs can build serious wealth through exposure to the best companies and strongest trends, without managing individual stocks. A clean setup is a core of VOO or VTI, a growth tilt through SCHG, VUG or QQQM, and an aggressive tech tilt through VGT. The ranking is SCHG, VUG, QQQM, SPYG, VGT, MGK, then IWF, which is solid but costlier. Many overlap, so owning all adds little diversification, and growth-heavy funds can be hit hard by rising rates, tech selloffs or rotation to value. … Show more
Broadcom is one of the best dividend growth stories in the market, growing earnings fast while returning more and more to shareholders. Its dividend rose from $0.19 a share in 2016 to $2.36 in 2025, a 29.3% compound annual growth rate. x.com
The new generation of covered-call income ETFs on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 is preferable to traditional dividend funds like SCHD, serving as counterbalances built to underperform in bull markets and outperform in flat or down ones. Given a bullish long-term market outlook, plain S&P 500 or Nasdaq 100 funds should still outperform them over decades. x.com x.com
The S&P 500 fund VOO beats covered-call income ETFs like GPIX and QQQI because covered calls cap upside, leaving long-run returns worse. Since GPIX's October 2023 inception, VOO has compounded 26.4% a year versus GPIX's 23.6%, while QQQ's 25.4% beat QQQI's 21%. Fees add drag of about 1.1% for GPIX and 2.2% for QQQI versus 0.1% for VOO, and large monthly payouts are tax-inefficient. x.com x.com
The Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF is having a massive year while providing steady passive income. Boring investments held for the long term are how wealth gets built. x.com