SPHD and SCHD Both Promise High Dividends, Yet One Has Barely Made Investors Any Money in a Decade
SPHD and SCHD both court dividend investors with promises of reliable income from established U.S. companies, yet a decade of returns reveals a stunning divide hiding beneath their nearly identical pitches.
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On the surface, the Invesco S&P 500 High Dividend Low Volatility ETF (NYSEARCA:SPHD) and the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (NYSEARCA:SCHD) look like siblings. Both promise fat, dependable dividends from established U.S. companies. Yet over the past ten years, SPHD returned 102.88% while SCHD returned 244.64%. That gap reflects two completely different bets dressed up in the same clothing.
What Each Fund Is Actually Betting On
SPHD screens the S&P 500 for the 75 highest-yielding names, then keeps the 50 with the lowest realized volatility and weights them by yield. The result is a portfolio anchored in utilities, REITs, and consumer staples. The implicit bet: current income is worth more than growth, and a slow-moving portfolio of defensives will compound reliably.
SCHD works from the opposite end. It tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 Index, requiring 10 or more consecutive years of dividend payments, then ranks survivors by cash-flow-to-total-debt, return on equity, yield, and five-year dividend growth. That is a quality screen with a yield tie-breaker. The bet is that companies gushing cash and raising payouts will outrun higher-yielding but slower-growing peers.
Where the Gap Shows Up
The gap is visible everywhere, but 2026 has been especially unkind to SPHD’s thesis. Year to date, SCHD is up 27.47% versus SPHD’s 10.39%. Over five years, SCHD returned 61.21% against SPHD’s 43.81%. The low-volatility screen did its job in the 2022 rate shock, but it also filtered out the semiconductor and healthcare compounders that carried SCHD.
Look at SCHD’s book: Qualcomm at 6.74% of assets, Texas Instruments at 5.90%, and UnitedHealth at 5.09% anchor a portfolio that behaves less like a bond substitute and more like a broad-market fund with a dividend tilt. SPHD’s yield-weighting mechanic pushes it deeper into rate-sensitive utilities and REITs, sectors that spent 2022 through 2024 fighting a losing battle with Treasury yields.
Income Looks Different Too
SPHD pays monthly, with a trailing distribution of $2.4435 per share and a forward annualized rate near $2.64. SCHD pays quarterly, with a trailing $1.048 and a forward $1.01. On a per-share basis SPHD wins the current-yield race (we rounded up seven other names that also send checks every 30 days in a free monthly-payer guide), but SCHD’s payout has climbed roughly fivefold since 2011, while SPHD’s monthly rate has drifted only modestly higher over the same span.
Practical Comparison
| Metric | SPHD | SCHD |
|---|---|---|
| 10-year total return | 102.88% | 244.64% |
| 1-year total return | 9.05% | 29.76% |
| Distribution frequency | Monthly | Quarterly |
| Net assets | Not disclosed | $94.9 billion |
| Expense ratio (historical) | ~0.30% | ~0.06% |
The expense gap alone compounds meaningfully across a decade, and SCHD’s larger asset base translates into tighter spreads for buyers.
Verdict
On the metrics that matter to most dividend investors, SCHD has led: a growing income stream, better total returns, cheaper fees, and broader sector exposure. SPHD only makes sense for a retiree who needs monthly checks, values low realized volatility over growth, and accepts that the trade-off has cost more than 140 percentage points of return over a decade. If long Treasury yields collapse and defensives lead again, SPHD’s construction could shine. Absent that regime shift, SCHD keeps winning.
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Jake has been been working in financial media for almost 15 years. He focuses on all things personal finance for 24/7 Wall St. with high hopes to educate and entertain. Most recently, Jake spent 12 years working various roles at The Motley Fool. He started copy editing fool.com content, worked on premium and marketing campaigns, and helped launch The Ascent, a personal finance brand.
His work has been featured on platforms like MSN, Yahoo Finance, USA Today, and more. He's written about credit cards, social security, ETFs, savings accounts, and just about anything else you can imagine when thinking about money. Jake love to cook, play golf, and tell people he's never had a cavity. (It's true!)
