Most of my friends and family members don’t want to deal with the complexities associated with owning stocks in individual companies and most don’t have the time to evaluate individual bonds or preferred stocks. Therefore, it is generally much better for them to invest in a few solid, dividend-growth ETF funds. When selecting ETFs, it is helpful to have tools to evaluate the quality and characteristics of the ETF fund. Today, and for the next couple of Thursday’s, I will provide some useful tools for that purpose.

Today the tool is “ETF Daily News.” (ETFDN). ETFDN is a great way to get a quick snapshot of an ETF. It includes a ranking, “Smart Grade”, profile information, including the expense ratio and the total holdings, a way to see the top holdings, “top stories”, dividend yield, recent returns, a stock chart and dividend details.

I often recommend VYM (Vanguard High Dividend Yield Index Fund ETF Shares) as a good ETF. The link below will take you to the VYM view on ETFDN. Note that VYM is Ranked #3 of 82 in Large Cap Value ETFs. Similar ETFs you might want to explore are DVY, SCHD, DGRO and HDV.

I own shares of VYM, DVY, SCHD, DGRO and HDV for diversification.

LINK: ETF News for VYM