With money market funds and short Treasury bills hovering near 4.6%, the bar for owning anything with equity-like risk has gone up. Income investors keep asking the same question: which funds actually pay enough to justify stepping outside cash? Three under-followed ETFs have spent the last few months on my comparison spreadsheet, and each solves the income problem with a completely different engine. Man Global Investment Grade Opportunities ETF (NASDAQ:DYV) leans on global investment-grade corporate bonds. Invesco S&P 500 High Dividend Low Volatility ETF (NYSEARCA:SPHD | SPHD Price Prediction) screens the S&P 500 for the highest dividends among the least jumpy stocks. And Virtus InfraCap U.S. Preferred Stock ETF (NYSEARCA:PFFA) uses modest leverage on preferred stock of infrastructure issuers.
None of these trade near the size of the household-name dividend ETFs, which is part of why they remain mispriced relative to the income they throw off.
Why this matters now
The 10-year Treasury closed last week at 4.6%, near the top of its 12-month range after climbing about 7% in a month. That has pushed cash yields up, but it has also created a yield gap problem in reverse: investors paying tax on Treasury interest at ordinary rates are giving back a chunk of that headline number. The three ETFs below pay more, distribute monthly, and offer at least some equity participation if rates eventually come back down.
Man Global Investment Grade Opportunities (DYV): the credit play
DYV is the contrarian pick on this list. Most income roundups stay inside U.S. equity dividend funds, but DYV is a globally diversified investment-grade corporate bond fund with a current yield of 5.5%. The mechanism is straightforward: it buys corporate credit where the manager believes the spread over governments overstates the actual default risk, then collects the coupon.
The portfolio is heavily tilted toward financial issuers, with 30% in “other financials,” 18% in banks, and 9% in insurance. Geographically, 32% sits in continental Europe and 12% in Latin America, with North America at 23%. Credit quality clusters at BBB, which is the sweet spot for picking up incremental yield without dropping into junk. The fund holds $6.9 billion in assets and runs at an expense ratio of 0.016%, which is essentially free for an actively managed global credit strategy.
What you give up: this is a bond fund. In a credit-spread shock or a sharp sell-off in European banks, DYV will mark down with the rest of the corporate bond market. The currency exposure is hedged back to U.S. dollars per the benchmark, so you are not making a euro bet, but you are accepting global credit risk in exchange for a yield that sits roughly 90 basis points above the 10-year Treasury.
Invesco S&P 500 High Dividend Low Volatility (SPHD): the defensive dividend
SPHD is the equity option, and it is built specifically for investors who want a dividend yield without the gut-punch drawdowns that come with chasing the highest payers in the index. The methodology starts with the 75 highest-yielding S&P 500 names, then keeps only the 50 with the lowest realized volatility. That second screen is the entire point: many of the highest-yielding stocks in any given year are high-yielding because the share price has collapsed. The volatility filter throws those out.
Distributions are paid monthly. SPHD has distributed $2.21 per share over the trailing 12 months on a current price of about $50, working out to a trailing yield near 4.5%. Recent monthly payments have stepped up meaningfully, with the April 2026 distribution at $0.20836 versus $0.14015 a year earlier, so the forward run rate is closer to 5%.
Performance has cooperated. SPHD is up 5% year to date and 8% over the past year, with a 10-year total price return of 107% before counting the dividends along the way. The tradeoff is what the low-volatility screen actually selects: utilities, consumer staples, telecom, and REITs dominate. In a risk-on rally led by technology and growth, SPHD will lag the broader index, sometimes badly. It is built to bend less in a correction, with the tradeoff of lagging the NASDAQ in risk-on rallies.
Virtus InfraCap U.S. Preferred Stock (PFFA): the yield outlier
PFFA is where the yield math gets interesting. Preferred stock sits between bonds and common equity in the capital structure: it pays a fixed dividend, ranks ahead of common shareholders, and behaves more like a long-duration bond than a stock. PFFA concentrates on preferreds issued by U.S. infrastructure companies, primarily REITs, utilities, energy midstream operators, and financials, and the fund uses modest leverage to amplify the income.
That combination pushes the distribution rate well above anything available in plain-vanilla preferred funds. PFFA has paid $0.1725 per share monthly through 2026, an annualized run rate of $2.07 against a current price of $21.52. That works out to a yield in the high single digits, roughly double DYV and SPHD. Distributions have grown every year since 2021, moving from $0.16 monthly to the current $0.1725.
The price has cooperated too. PFFA is up 13% over the past year and 41% over five years, on top of those monthly distributions. The catch is the leverage. When credit spreads widen or rates spike, leveraged preferred funds get hit on both sides: the value of the underlying preferreds falls, and the cost of the borrowed money rises. PFFA can move 15% to 20% in a quarter when the long end of the curve dislocates. PFFA behaves like a high-yield equity position rather than a bond substitute, and position sizing should reflect that.
Which one fits which investor
The three funds are not interchangeable. A retiree pulling a fixed monthly income who cannot tolerate a 20% drawdown may find SPHD a fit, where the volatility screen does real work in corrections. An investor already overweight U.S. equities who wants to add a credit sleeve at a competitive yield could research DYV, where the geographic and sector diversification meaningfully reduces overlap with a typical U.S. portfolio. And an investor who already owns plenty of defensive equity and is willing to accept real mark-to-market risk in exchange for a near-double-digit distribution may want to research PFFA as a smaller, sized position.
The reason all three remain under-owned relative to their yields is the same: each one requires the investor to understand a specific mechanism rather than just a ticker. That is the whole edge.
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