A sound investment process and strong management team underpin iShares International Dividend Gr ETF's Morningstar Medalist Rating of Gold. The portfolio maintains a sizable cost advantage over competitors, priced within the least expensive fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy's investment process inspires confidence and earns a High Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained a significant underweight position in liquidity exposure and volatility exposure compared with category peers. Low liquidity risk exposure is attributed to stocks with a low trading volume, limiting managers' flexibility. And low volatility exposure is rooted in stocks that have a lower standard deviation of returns. The strategy’s management team earns an Above Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm an Above Average Parent Pillar rating. People Pillar and Parent Pillar ratings for this strategy are indirectly assigned by a Morningstar analyst rather than algorithmically derived. Please see the notes following each pillar section for more details. The details of assigning methods can be found in each pillar section.

Analyst Rating

National Energy Services Reunited

Banco Santander

Rogers

Novan

Royal Bank of Canada

Toronto-Dominion Bank

Canadian Natural Resources

SAP SE

Suncor Energy

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce

Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category index on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. iShares International Dividend Gr ETF earns a High Process Pillar rating. 

The main contributor to the rating is that this fund tracks an index. Historical data, such as Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, finds that passively managed funds have generally outperformed their active counterparts, especially over longer time horizons. Strong risk-adjusted performance also strengthens the process. This can be seen in the fund's five-year alpha calculated relative to the category index, which suggests that the managers have shown skill in their allocation of risk. The firm's five-year retention rate of 92% supports the rating as well.

 This strategy tends to hold smaller, more value-oriented companies than its average peer in the Foreign Large Blend Morningstar Category. Analyzing additional factors, this strategy continually held some stocks with low trading volume over the last few years. Less-liquid stocks might offer strong returns to compensate for their risks, but they can be harder and more expensive to trade in bear markets. In the latest month, the strategy was also less exposed to the Liquidity factor compared with Morningstar Category peers. This strategy has also exhibited a tilt toward low-volatility stocks in recent years, meaning companies with a lower historical standard deviation of returns. These low-risk stocks are typically at their best when markets are not. Low volatility exposure contributes to limited loss on the downside at the cost of a lag in bull markets. Similarly, in recent months, the strategy also had less exposure to the Volatility factor than peers. Additionally, the strategy has demonstrated a contrarian approach with relatively low exposure to momentum stocks during these years. Momentum investors tend to expect stocks that have done well recently to continue to do so in the short term. Momentum approaches can entail higher turnover and trading costs since the top stocks can often change. In recent months, the strategy also had less Momentum factor exposure than its peers. More information on a fund and its respective category's factor exposure can be found in the Factor Profile module within the Portfolio section. 

 The portfolio is overweight in financial services and utilities relative to the category average by 7.1 and 6.3 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are consumer cyclical and technology, underweight the average by 8.2 and 3.3 percentage points of assets, respectively. The portfolio is composed of 437 holdings and is relatively concentrated. Specifically, 27.2% of the strategy's assets are housed within the top 10 holdings, as opposed to the category’s 15.4% average. And in closing, in terms of portfolio turnover, looking at year-over-year movements, 37% of the fund's holdings have changed, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

High

Process

iShares International Dividend Gr ETF's strong team drives the strategy's Above Average People Pillar rating. There are three managers listed on the fund: Paul Whitehead, Jennifer Hsui, Greg Savage. The team is well equipped, with an average of 18 years of portfolio management experience. Together, they manage a total of 257 strategies, with solid long-term prospects. The strategies average a Silver asset-weighted Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating a position to deliver positive alpha relative to the category median in aggregate.  

 Note: This People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. Morningstar analysts evaluate the People Pillar for passive products at the brand level and may also differentiate by asset class. There is at least one other passive strategy at the firm that is covered by a Morningstar analyst, so the People Pillar rating of the fund is inherited from the rating that the Morningstar analyst assigned to investment vehicles under the same brand name.

Above Average

People

BlackRock offers compelling options across asset classes and vehicles. It earns an Above Average rating for Parent. 
The firm’s approximately USD 8 trillion in assets under management, as of Sept. 30, 2022, gives it unparalleled scale and influence. It is a market-leading index fund provider globally, and its iShares exchange-traded fund franchise offers a low-cost lineup of core funds that investors can use to build a well-diversified portfolio for dirt cheap. The firm can be more adventurous in its ETF launches than some peers, so not everything it launches is appropriate for the masses. As a result, it is likely to have more ETF closures than peers that stick to the basic building blocks.  
The firm’s active fixed-income and multi-asset efforts also stand out as some of the best in the industry. Those benefit from BlackRock’s commitment to building a first-class risk management system via its Aladdin analytics software. The software is also available for sale to other firms and has proved to be a popular option for competitors, a testament to its usefulness. 
More recently, the firm has shifted its focus to ESG offerings and incorporating ESG across its investment lineup, leading to a political backlash in the United States.
BlackRock isn’t the best at everything it tries to do, but retail investors, financial advisors, and large institutions could all build robust portfolios using BlackRock’s products.

Parent

iShares International Dividend Growth ETF

IGRO tracks an index of international equities that have growing dividends.

iShares International Dividend Growth ETF tracks the Morningstar Global ex-US Dividend Growth Index and holds 388 stocks. The IGRO fund is overweight in financials and has a significant presence in Europe and Asia. IGRO has underperformed compared to several competitors and has lagged behind inflation.

IGRO: Unattractive Relative To Peers

iShares International Dividend Growth ETF holds over 400 global stocks with growing dividends. It is well-diversified across countries and holdings, but not so much across sectors.

IGRO: Global Dividend Growth ETF With Sub-Par Performance

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iShares International Dividend Growth ETF has a fully diversified ex-U.S. global portfolio with almost 65 percent of its $577 million assets invested in four sectors having above-average growth potential. IGRO bears low risk due to its smart portfolio allocation, acceptable turnover ratio, low expense ratio, steady yield, and favorable impact of interest rate hikes.

IGRO: This Low-Yielding Diversified Global Ex-US ETF Deserves Your Attention

IGRO is a global dividend growth ETF with over 40% of asset value in Europe. It looks cheap, but valuation is skewed by the heavy weight of financials.

IGRO: Dividend Growth ETF Lagging Its Competitors

IGRO's performance has been primarily driven by bad performance in European markets. Substantial financial exposure is favorable in a rate hike environment.

IGRO: Low Maintenance But High Quality

IGRO invests in non-U.S. stocks with at least 5-year history of dividend increases. It excludes high-yielders and pays attention to the payout ratio and earnings forecasts. In the current version, IGRO is overweight in Japanese, Canadian, Swiss, and UK equities.

IGRO: FX Risk And Dividend Growth Among Concerns

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After a two-year hiatus on raising dividends, Canada's top six banks — Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, and National Bank of Canada — are set to resume the practice this week. Even with the two-year moratorium brought about in March 2020 at the outset [.

Canadian Banks Commit to Big Dividends

IGRO is overweight in Europe and financials.

IGRO: International Dividend Growth

The iShares International Dividend Growth ETF holds a portfolio of international stocks with a history of growing dividends. It has over 400 holdings, yields 2.4% and costs just 15 basis points.

I Won't Grow With IGRO

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A one-two punch threatening income investors: rising inflation and low interest rates. Dividends have historically grown faster than inflation and can help investors outpace inflation.

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iShares International Dividend Growth ETF (IGRO) recently hit a 52-week high. Can this soar further?

iShares International Dividend Growth ETF (IGRO) at 52-Week High

IGRO tracks the dividend dollar-weighted Morningstar Global ex-US Dividend Growth Index. The benchmark is not pursuing high-yielders; instead, it focuses on dividend consistency and growth. Most of the fund's net assets are currently allocated to Canada (19.2% of the portfolio), Japan (13.5%), and the United Kingdom (12.7%). The most significant EM in IGRO's portfolio is China.

IGRO: Imperfect Methodology Is A Key Weakness

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News for iShares International Dividend Growth ETF ETF (IGRO)