HDV vs VYM
iShares Core High Dividend ETF and Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF side by side. Fees, fund size, returns, yield and risk, all from live data. Add a third or fourth ticker to widen the comparison.
When price history is available, each instrument is computed live from its actual dividend-adjusted price history: price, trailing and since-inception returns, max drawdown, beta, Sharpe, a growth-of-$10k path, and dividend yield from the real distributions paid over the last 12 months. All returns are total returns (dividends and distributions reinvested), which is why a fund that pays large cash distributions (a managed-futures ETF, say) can far outrun its own price chart. Fund-only fields such as expense ratio show for ETFs. "Best" highlights the most favourable value in each row across the selected instruments (lowest fee; highest return, yield or Sharpe; smallest drawdown). Growth of $10,000 uses only dates with valid dividend-adjusted prices for every selected instrument, capped at the last 10 years. Each balance equals $10,000 × adjusted price / adjusted price on the common starting date. No prices are backfilled before inception or carried forward across missing dates. Lines connect the available weekly observations without curve smoothing; intraperiod moves are not shown. Legend percentages are total returns over the displayed dates. The table’s trailing returns and full-history maximum drawdown use their own periods. This is a hypothetical historical illustration before tax, not a forecast.
Returns use the same dividend-adjusted weekly series and trailing-window calculation as ETF Analyzer. Quotes refresh about every two minutes while this page is visible; summaries and weekly history refresh about every 15 minutes. Quote timestamps and return observation dates are shown for each instrument. During an interruption, dated cached quotes are available for at most 10 minutes after retrieval, and history or summaries for at most 24 hours; delayed data is marked and retried. A cache retrieval date is not a market observation date. Returns require dividend-adjusted closes and never substitute a live quote for the final historical bar. Backtester uses monthly observations; partial-month endpoints can differ.
About this comparison
iShares Core High Dividend ETF (HDV) is an iShares exchange-traded fund in the High dividend category, with price history going back to 2011. Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF (VYM) is a Vanguard exchange-traded fund in the High dividend category, with price history going back to 2006. Both trade through the day like a share and both publish what they hold. The table on this page puts them next to each other and fills in cost, fund size, returns, yield and risk from live market data.
The two sit in the same category, High dividend, which is why their return lines tend to travel together. What separates them is cost, scale and track record: VYM has price history back to 2006, HDV back to 2011. Read the expense ratio, fund size and years-in-existence rows first, then check whether the return and risk rows really do diverge or only look like they might.
Which is cheaper, HDV or VYM?
The expense ratio row in the table above answers it live, and the lower figure carries a best tag. A fee is a yearly percentage of what you hold, taken out of the fund rather than billed to you, which is exactly why it is easy to shrug at over one year and hard to shrug at over thirty.
Which holds more companies, HDV or VYM?
Holdings counts shift at every index rebalance, so scope is the honest answer. HDV covers companies whose dividend yields sit above the market average. VYM covers companies whose dividend yields sit above the market average. The wider scope is the one that spreads your money across more positions.
Can I hold both HDV and VYM?
Nothing stops you and plenty of people do. The question worth asking first is how much the two overlap: funds drawn from the same pool of companies leave you with one bet wearing two tickers, while funds with genuinely different scopes widen what you own. Put the pair through the portfolio backtester and the correlation tool to see which of the two you would actually be doing. General information, not advice.
Which suits a taxable account, HDV or VYM?
Both are exchange-traded funds, and the structure itself is the part that usually matters: an ETF can hand appreciated shares off in kind when large holders leave, which keeps forced capital-gains distributions rarer than in a traditional mutual fund. What separates two ETFs is how much income each throws off, since dividends and option premiums are taxable in the year they land, and how often the underlying index turns over. Read the dividend yield row with that in mind and check your own tax position before acting.