ProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats retains its Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze. The portfolio maintains a sizable cost advantage over competitors, priced within the lowest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy's investment process inspires confidence and earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained a significant overweight position in quality exposure and an underweight in volatility exposure compared with category peers. A high quality exposure means holding stocks that are consistently profitable, growing, and have solid balance sheets. And low volatility exposure is rooted in stocks that have a lower standard deviation of returns. The team managing this passive strategy earns a Below Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization is industry standard, albeit with some strong attributes like overall low fees, but is held back by an unfavorable average Morningstar Rating. This earns the firm an Average Parent Pillar rating.

Analyst Rating

C.H. Robinson Worldwide

Amcor Plc

Albemarle

Colgate-Palmolive

Air Products and Chemicals

NextEra Energy

Ecolab

Essex Property Trust

Dover

Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category benchmark on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. ProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. 

The most important driver of the rating is that this fund tracks an index. Historical data, like 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 influences the rating. This can be seen in the fund's five-year alpha calculated relative to the category average, which suggests that the managers have shown skill in their allocation of risk. 

 This strategy leans toward smaller, more growth-oriented companies compared with its average peer in the Large Value Morningstar Category. Examining additional factor exposure, this strategy has consistently had a defensive tilt owing to its exposure to high-quality stocks over the past few years. This means the fund holds consistently profitable, growing companies with solid balance sheets that may help it endure downturns better than Morningstar Category peers. In recent months, the strategy was more exposed to the Quality factor compared with its Morningstar Category peers as well. The managers have also shown an underweight risk tilt, demonstrated by lower volatility exposure over peers in recent years. 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. In addition, this strategy has shown a strong tendency to hold fewer stocks with high dividend or buyback yields over peers in recent years. Its preference for stocks with lower yields may well lead to a growthier portfolio. However, growth stocks court additional risks if their forecasts do not come to fruition and are often more volatile than companies with stable dividends. In recent months, the strategy also had less Yield 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 consumer defensive and industrials relative to the category average by 15.7 and 12.3 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are financial services and technology, underweight the average by 9.6 and 9.5 percentage points of assets, respectively. The portfolio is positioned across 69 holdings and is diversified among those holdings. In its most recent portfolio, 16.6% of the fund’s assets were concentrated in the top 10 fund holdings, compared to the category’s 27.4% average. And in closing, in terms of portfolio turnover, on a year-over-year basis, 22% of the fund's holdings have changed, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

Above Average

Process

ProShares’s team earns a Below Average People Pillar rating. The team is bolstered by the fund's structure. It tracks an index, which is helpful because historical data, like Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, reveals that index funds have generally outperformed their active counterparts, especially over longer time periods. However, the rating is held back by the parent firm's five-year success ratio of 27%. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and beat their respective category's median return for the period. The parent's relatively low success ratio suggests that the firm could do better across its fund lineup. The parent firm's five-year retention rate of 58% also detracts from the team.

Below Average

People

In a competitive industry, ProShares doesn't differentiate itself enough, leading to an Average Parent Pillar rating. A strength of ProShares is that its product shelf of open-end and exchange-traded funds is, on average, offered at a minimal cost, suggesting that it considers what's best for its investor base. On average, fees for funds are in the lowest quintile of respective category peers. Looking at the firm's risk-adjusted performance, the product lineup compares similarly to competitors. Across its open-end and exchange-traded funds, the firm's average 10-year Morningstar Rating is 3.1 stars. ProShares has faced above-average manager turnover in the past five years. This is a concern, as long-term stability tends to support positive results.

Average

Parent

ProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats ETF

NOBL tracks an equal-weighted index of S&P 500 constituents that have increased dividend payments annually for at least 25 years.

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In a low interest rate environment, dividend investing has been the hot spot and seems an excellent choice for 2020.

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2020 is already proving to be a volatile year for markets as geopolitical risks are keeping investors from diving head first into the stock market with events like the U.S.-Iran conflict and the forthcoming 2020 presidential election up ahead.

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Coming off a year in which it gained 27.4% while hauling in $1.81 billion in new assets, the ProShares S&P 500 Aristocrats ETF (CBOE: NOBL) appears poised for success in 2020.

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Franklin Resources

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Here we highlight some dividend growth ETFs that can be considered in the wake of intensifying Middle-East tensions.

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The ProShares S&P 500 Aristocrats ETF (CBOE: NOBL) is home to 57 dividend-paying stocks, which are weighted equally, but four could power the fast-growing ETF to another solid annual showing in 2020.

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S&P 500 earnings growth is expected to notch a 9.6% increase next with five sectors – energy, industrials, materials, consumer discretionary and communication services – expected to post double-digit growth, according to FactSet. However, if earnings growth slows more than market observers currently expect, investors ought to consider gaining some protection and income with dividend [.

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This has been a very fine year for dividend strategies, particularly exchange traded funds focusing on stocks with consistent track records of growing payouts.

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As this decade draws to a close, the traditionally defensive Dividend Aristocrats managed to outperform the broad market.

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The other prominent theme has been investors' ongoing affinity for inexpensive ETFs.

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The ProShares S&P 500 Aristocrats ETF (CBOE: NOBL) is higher by 23.54% year-to-date, not far off the pace being set by the S&P 500. In NOBL’s case, being nearly inline with the S&P 500 is impressive because the ProShares fund offers lower volatility than broader benchmarks.

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ETFs that track dividend growers with a long track record of increasing payouts have exhibited a quality defensive characteristic that’s helped investors weather some of the recent market storms.

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We discuss two new dividend growth ETFs that have been recently launched by ProShares.

New Dividend Growth ETFs Hit the Market

ProShares added to its burgeoning lineup of dividend growth ETFs Thursday with the launches of two funds – the ProShares Russell U.S. Dividend Growers ETF (CBOE: TMDV) and the ProShares S&P Technology Dividend Aristocrats ETF (CBOE: TDV).

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Aflac

Illinois Tool Works

McCormick

Walmart

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Investors often believe that dividend stocks trade at premiums to broader equity benchmarks due to the combination of defensive, quality traits and above-average yields. And it would be reasonable to assume that dividend growth stocks, such as those found in the ProShares S&P 500 Aristocrats ETF (CBOE: NOBL), would be somewhat pricey due to the [.

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Investors who are looking for ways to diversify should also consider the long-term potential of the Dividend Aristocrats or ETFs that focus on the dividend growth theme and how these strategies can fit into a well-rounded portfolio.

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Faced with intense market uncertainty fueled by trade wars, political discourse, earnings pressures and more, advisors are looking for quality investments—strategies like the Dividend Aristocrats—that have a demonstrated history of weathering periods of market volatility.

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Siren DIVCON Leaders Dividend ETF

By Todd Rosenbluth, CFRA Investors added $4.5 billion of new money to dividend-focused ETFs in the third quarter of 2019 as the relative stability these funds offer was in demand amid a risk-off environment in August, while the capital appreciation aspect supported continued interest during the risk-on September. According to S&P Dow Jones, there were 426 [.

Dividend ETF Growth Added $4.5B in Q3

Up nearly 18% year-to-date, the ProShares S&P 500 Aristocrats ETF (CBOE: NOBL) is been steady for much of this year, including the third quarter when a slew of S&P 500 boosted dividends. NOBL tracks the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index, targets the cream of the crop, only selecting components that have increased their dividends for [.

Another Strong Run For The NOBL Dividend ETF

China's request for another round of talks before ironing out the phase 1 deal raises uncertainty.

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The July through September period was another solid stretch for dividend exchange traded funds as investors added $4.5 billion to the asset class.

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Dividend yields recently surpassed those of benchmark Treasury notes for the first time since 2016, potentially providing further support for equity markets and dividend-paying stock exchange traded funds in this prolonged low-rate environment.

News for ProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats ETF ETF (NOBL)