The WisdomTree International High Dividend ETF (DTH) made its debut on 06/16/2006, and is a smart beta exchange traded fund that provides broad exposure to the Broad Developed World ETFs category of the market.
What Are Smart Beta ETFs?
For a long time now, the ETF industry has been flooded with products based on market capitalization weighted indexes, which are designed to represent the broader market or a particular market segment.
Market cap weighted indexes offer a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns, and are a good option for investors who believe in market efficiency.
There are some investors, though, who think it's possible to beat the market with great stock selection; this group likely invests in another class of funds known as smart beta, which track non-cap weighted strategies.
Non-cap weighted indexes try to choose stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance, which is based on specific fundamental characteristics, or a mix of other such characteristics.
This area offers many different investment choices, such as simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies; however, not all of these strategies can deliver superior results.
Fund Sponsor & Index
The fund is sponsored by Wisdomtree. It has amassed assets over $633.27 million, making it one of the average sized ETFs in the Broad Developed World ETFs. Before fees and expenses, this particular fund seeks to match the performance of the WisdomTree International High Dividend Index.
The WisdomTree International High Dividend Index is a fundamentally weighted Index that measures the performance of companies with high dividend yields selected from the WisdomTree International Equity Index.
Cost & Other Expenses
For ETF investors, expense ratios are an important factor when considering a fund's return; in the long-term, cheaper funds actually have the ability to outperform their more expensive cousins if all other things remain the same.
With on par with most peer products in the space, this ETF has annual operating expenses of 0.58%.
The fund has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 3.92%.
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, Hsbc Holdings Plc (HSBA) accounts for about 2.88% of the fund's total assets, followed by Shell Plc-new (SHEL) and Nestle Sa (NESN).
DTH's top 10 holdings account for about 19.33% of its total assets under management.
Performance and Risk
The ETF has added about 10.69% and is up about 25.55% so far this year and in the past one year (as of 07/16/2026), respectively. DTH has traded between $46.40 and $57.58 during this last 52-week period.
DTH has a beta of 0.56 and standard deviation of 13.55% for the trailing three-year period, which makes the fund a medium risk choice in the space. With about 577 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk .
Alternatives
WisdomTree International High Dividend ETF is not a suitable option for investors seeking to outperform the Broad Developed World ETFs segment of the market. Instead, there are other ETFs in the space which investors should consider.
iShares MSCI EAFE ETF (EFA) tracks MSCI EAFE Index and the iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF (IEFA) tracks MSCI EAFE Investable Market Index. iShares MSCI EAFE ETF has $77.41 billion in assets, iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF has $188.25 billion. EFA has an expense ratio of 0.32% and IEFA changes 0.07%.
Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Broad Developed World ETFs
Bottom Line
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WisdomTree International High Dividend ETF (DTH): ETF Research Reports
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).