Designed to provide broad exposure to the Broad Emerging Market ETFs category of the market, the State Street SPDR S&P Emerging Markets Dividend ETF (EDIV) is a smart beta exchange traded fund launched on 02/23/2011.
What Are Smart Beta ETFs?
The ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on market capitalization weighted indexes that are designed to represent the market or a particular segment of the market.
Investors who believe in market efficiency should consider market cap indexes, as they replicate market returns in a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way.
If you're the kind of investor who would rather try and beat the market through good stock selection, then smart beta funds are your best choice; this fund class is known for tracking non-cap weighted strategies.
By attempting to pick stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance, non-cap weighted indexes are based on certain fundamental characteristics, or a combination of such.
While this space offers a number of choices to investors, including simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies, not all these strategies have been able to deliver superior results.
Fund Sponsor & Index
The fund is sponsored by State Street Investment Management. It has amassed assets over $1.22 billion, making it one of the larger ETFs in the Broad Emerging Market ETFs. Before fees and expenses, EDIV seeks to match the performance of the S&P Emerging Markets Dividend Opportunities Index.
The S&P Emerging Markets Dividend Opportunities Index includes 100 tradable, exchange-listed common stocks from emerging market countries that offer high dividend yields.
Cost & Other Expenses
Cost is an important factor in selecting the right ETF, and cheaper funds can significantly outperform their more expensive cousins if all other fundamentals are the same.
Operating expenses on an annual basis are 0.49% for this ETF, which makes it on par with most peer products in the space.
It's 12-month trailing dividend yield comes in at 4.18%.
Sector Exposure and Top Holdings
It is important to delve into an ETF's holdings before investing despite the many upsides to these kinds of funds like diversified exposure, which minimizes single stock risk. And, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis.
When you look at individual holdings, Sino American Silicon Producaccounts for about 5.15% of the fund's total assets, followed by Ambev Sa (ABEV3) and Sinbon Electronics Co Ltd.
The top 10 holdings account for about 24.47% of total assets under management.
Performance and Risk
So far this year, EDIV return is roughly 8.44%, and it's up approximately 11.42% in the last one year (as of 08/17/2026). During this past 52-week period, the fund has traded between $37.81 and $43.43.
EDIV has a beta of 0.48 and standard deviation of 12.62% for the trailing three-year period, which makes the fund a medium risk choice in the space. With about 138 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk .
Alternatives
State Street SPDR S&P Emerging Markets Dividend ETF is a reasonable option for investors seeking to outperform the Broad Emerging Market ETFs segment of the market. However, there are other ETFs in the space which investors could consider.
Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund ETF Shares (VWO) tracks FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China A Inclusion Index and the iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG) tracks MSCI Emerging Markets Investable Market Index. Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund ETF Shares has $125.34 billion in assets, iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF has $159.07 billion. VWO has an expense ratio of 0.06% and IEMG changes 0.09%.
Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Broad Emerging Market ETFs
Bottom Line
To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center.
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State Street SPDR S&P Emerging Markets Dividend ETF (EDIV): ETF Research ReportsThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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