NEW YORK, March 25, 2026, 07:56 EDT
- SCHD shares went ex-dividend March 25 at $0.2569 each, with payment set for March 30.
- Both Motley Fool and TipRanks pointed to the March reshuffle as a move that helped maintain the fund’s appeal for those focused on income.
- Schwab reports net assets at $84.1 billion, an expense ratio of 0.06%, and a 30-day SEC yield of 3.42%.
SCHD—the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF—hit its ex-dividend date Wednesday. So, anyone buying in now won’t get the March 30 payout. The $84.1 billion fund is back in focus after its yearly March holdings shakeup. Motley Fool and TipRanks, both publishing within the last two days, highlighted that this low-fee dividend ETF remains attractive for income-focused investors and those favoring less volatile sectors.
That’s become more relevant as investors hunt for portfolio buffers amid oil-fueled inflation jitters and stock market swings. On Tuesday, U.S. equities slipped, pressured by rising crude prices, a jump in bond yields, and weak business activity numbers. Schwab reports SCHD’s 30-day SEC yield at 3.42% as of March 23—a standard measure tracking recent fund income.
SCHD, an exchange-traded fund ETF, holds a collection of stocks that investors can buy and sell just like an ordinary share. It follows the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 Index, which goes through its yearly rebalance each March. To make the cut, U.S. companies need a decade or more of consecutive dividend payments. After that, the index sorts them by cash flow to debt, return on equity, dividend yield, and how their dividends have grown over the past five years.
Motley Fool’s Stefon Walters, writing March 23, pointed to the rules as a way to filter out so-called “yield traps”—he calls these “an attractive yield on a bad business.” Walters sees SCHD’s strength in its focus on big, established names, not newer growth stocks. The Motley Fool
A TipRanks report out Tuesday shows the fund trimmed its energy stake by 8 points, bumping up health care by 4 and technology by 3. The article notes the portfolio now spreads risk more evenly across sectors, with a small drop in price-to-earnings—yield remains basically untouched.
As of March 24, Schwab’s holdings page listed Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Verizon, Merck, Coca-Cola, Texas Instruments, Abbott Laboratories, Amgen, UnitedHealth, and PepsiCo as some of its largest stakes. Energy remains prominent up top, though the latest update signals a tilt toward health care and consumer staples as well.
The comparison that keeps coming up is with the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF, or VIG, which etf.com reports holds around $99 billion in assets. On March 24, Sumit Roy, senior ETF analyst at etf.com, noted that SCHD “leans more toward higher-yielding stocks,” whereas VIG focuses on companies with growing dividends. Roy pegged VIG’s 30-day SEC yield at about 1.6%, while SCHD was hovering near 3.4%. etf.com
Among the earliest of these, a Yahoo Finance-syndicated Motley Fool piece published March 20, spelled out a similar thesis. Reuben Gregg Brewer, Motley Fool analyst and Value Line alum, described SCHD’s strategy as focusing on “financially strong, well-run businesses with attractive, growing dividends.” He pointed to the 0.06% expense ratio, saying it’s “close to free by Wall Street standards.” The Motley Fool
This isn’t a one-way trade. Roy flagged that dividend ETFs sometimes trail the market, especially when their favored sectors underperform. TipRanks, for its part, highlighted that cutting energy now could raise eyebrows—oil shocks have been a tailwind. The publication also called out oddities in index rules, saying these can spark extra churn tied to the yield screen.
But the figures are right there: $84.1 billion in assets, a fresh $0.2569 payout lined up for March 30, and a rules-based structure that’s still easy to break down. For anyone weighing yield against growth, SCHD is being positioned this week as the play for more yield and less tech, while VIG is still seen as the straightforward pick for dividend growth.
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