We Checked 10 Dividend ETFs Against the Dividend Aristocrats Over Ten Years. Six Beat Them.

The ProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats ETF (CBOE:NOBL) has one of the most famous names in dividend investing. It holds companies with very long records of raising their payouts, and investors own NOBL for that discipline. On total return, though, NOBL trailed most of its peers. We measured 10 widely held dividend ETFs against NOBL over the same ten-year window, and 6 beat it. The biggest winner, the iShares Core Dividend Growth ETF (NYSEARCA:DGRO), finished ahead by 99.36 percentage points.

NOBL returned 158.94% with distributions reinvested, measured from October 11, 2016 through the settled close on Friday, October 9, 2026. Every fund here shares that identical start date, so each result covers the same market conditions from the same starting line.

How We Picked These Ten Funds

Five of the funds come from 24/7 Wall St.’s previously published list of the most-owned dividend ETFs:

• SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 High Dividend ETF (NYSEARCA:SPYD)
• Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (NYSEARCA:SCHD)
• iShares Core High Dividend ETF (NYSEARCA:HDV)
• Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF (NYSEARCA:VYM)
• Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (NYSEARCA:VIG)

The other five come from our recent dividend ETF coverage:

• iShares Core Dividend Growth ETF (DGRO)
• Fidelity High Dividend ETF (NYSEARCA:FDVV)
• iShares Select Dividend ETF (NASDAQ:DVY)
• SPDR S&P Dividend ETF (NYSEARCA:SDY)
• Invesco S&P 500 High Dividend Low Volatility ETF (NYSEARCA:SPHD)

This roster is a hand-picked group of widely held funds. It covers only part of the dividend ETF universe, and a different roster would produce a different count.

Every Return Assumes Reinvested Distributions

Each figure assumes every distribution went straight back into the fund. For dividend ETFs, that assumption does a great deal of work, because payouts are central to what these funds deliver. An investor who took the income as cash to cover living expenses experienced different results than the ones below.

Five Funds Beat NOBL by Wide Margins

DGRO led the group with a 258.3% ten-year return, 99.36 points ahead of NOBL. That was the biggest margin in the group.

FDVV returned 252.34%, a margin of 93.4 points. VIG followed at 251.34%, ahead by 92.4 points.

SCHD returned 233.8%, beating NOBL by 74.86 points. VYM returned 201.93%, a 42.99-point edge. The sixth winner, DVY, belongs in a separate category, as it only marginally outperformed NOBL.

Two Results Close Enough to Call a Draw

DVY returned 164.18%, beating NOBL by 5.24 points. HDV returned 157.24%, trailing by 1.7 points. Over a decade, gaps this thin can flip with a small shift in where the window starts or ends. Treat both funds as effectively tied with NOBL. The comparison labels DVY a winner and HDV a loser, but those labels overstate what such narrow margins show.

Funds That Fell Short of NOBL

SDY returned 145.87%. SPYD returned 118.3%. SPHD posted the worst result in the group at 96.01%, trailing by 62.93 points.

SPYD and SPHD, the two worst, are both popular income-oriented funds. Both finished well behind NOBL over this decade.

What One Ten-Year Window Can and Cannot Tell You

These results leave NOBL’s case solid on its own terms. The fund chooses companies for the consistency of their dividend increases, and total return falls outside that design. Grading NOBL only on return measures it against a goal it was never built to pursue.

The comparison also guarantees nothing about the future. It covers one ten-year window ending on October 9, 2026. A window ending a year earlier or later could rank these funds differently, and no winner here is certain of staying in front.

Over this specific decade, five of these funds beat NOBL by 42.99 points or more, a substantial margin over the full 10-year period.

What Dividend Investors Should Take From This

NOBL’s long dividend run is a selection rule, and over this past decade it cost total-return investors real growth. For total-return investors, DGRO, FDVV, VIG and SCHD stand out, each beating NOBL by 74.86 points or more. If a long record of rising payouts matters most to you, NOBL still does that job. It is also important to note that taxable accounts and tax-advantaged accounts such as an IRA or 401(k) treat fund sales differently for capital gains purposes.

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