Canadians looking for income and capital growth as well as international diversification in their portfolios now have five new exchange traded funds to choose from.
The funds from RBC Global Asset Management Inc. – which include the first unhedged European dividend ETF in this country – began trading on the TSX today and offer monthly income payouts.
"Our ongoing discussions with investors and advisers indicated a need for better income-generating solutions that provide international diversification and limit foreign currency risk," explained Mark Neill, head of RBC ETFs, in a statement.
The new funds become part of the lineup of RBC's Quant Dividend Leaders ETFs, which now total eight. Each one is managed by Bill Tilford, head of Quantitative Investments of RBC Global Asset Management and a team of portfolio managers and analysts. The management team employs a rules-based investment approach to identify companies with higher-than-average dividend yields, strong balance sheets, positive market sentiment and potential for future dividend growth.
The RBC Quant Emerging Markets Dividend Leaders ETF seeks to provide regular income by focusing on companies domiciled in the emerging markets by following the rules-based investment process which screens for income, financial strength and growth potential and applies a modified cap weighting methodology. The ETF has a management fee of 0.64 per cent. The ticker symbol "RXD" represents Canadian-dollar-denominated units, while the ticker symbol "RXD.u" represents U.S.-dollar denominated units.
The RBC Quant European Dividend Leaders ETF seeks to provide regular income by focusing on companies domiciled in Europe by following a similar rules-based approach. It becomes the first unhedged European dividend ETF in Canada and has a management fee of 0.49 per cent. The ticker symbol "RPD" represents Canadian-dollar-denominated units, while the ticker symbol "RPD.u" represents U.S.-dollar denominated units.
The remaining three funds are currency-hedged products: the RBC Quant U.S. Dividend Leaders (symbol RHU); the RBC Quant European Dividend Leaders (symbol RHP); and the RBC Quant EAFE Dividend Leaders (symbol RHI).
Darcy Keith