SDY: State Street SPDR S&P Dividend ETF

What does SDY hold?#

This fund owns US companies that have raised their dividends every year for at least 20 years in a row. It gives more weight to the ones that pay the most. Its value still rises and falls with the stock market.

It tracks the S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats Index. It had 155 holdings as of October 15, 2026, according to SPDR (State Street).

What is the SDY expense ratio?#

SDY charges 0.35% a year. An expense ratio is the yearly fee a fund takes to run itself. On $10,000, a 0.35% fee comes to about $35 a year.

You never get a bill for it. The fund takes the fee out of its own value a little each day.

How has SDY done since 2005?#

From November 2005 to October 2026, SDY returned about 8.9% a year. Say you put in $10,000 at the start. It would have been worth about $60,067 at the end, with every dividend reinvested.

Prices through October 16, 2026. Figures use daily closing prices adjusted for splits, with dividends reinvested. They do not include taxes or the cost of buying and selling. Past results do not tell you what will happen next.

SDY returns by year#

What was SDY’s worst drop?#

A drawdown is how far a fund falls from its last high point. SDY’s worst fall was −54.8%, from June 1, 2007 to March 9, 2009. It got back to that high on April 28, 2011.

The chart shows how far below its last high the fund was on each day. Big drops are normal for some funds. They matter because selling during a drop locks in the loss.

Which Tactfolio strategies hold SDY?#

No classic strategy holds SDY yet. You can add it to your own rules in the builder and see how they would have done.

How does SDY compare with similar ETFs?#

Funds that can stand in for SDY:

• VYM: Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF, 0.04% a year
• SCHD: Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF, 0.06% a year
• SPYD: State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 High Dividend ETF, 0.07% a year
• HDV: iShares Core High Dividend ETF, 0.08% a year

See all 8 SDY alternatives, compared on the same dates as SDY.

Test SDY in your own rules#

Tactfolio is a platform where you build rules-based investing strategies, backtest them on decades of real prices, share them, and run them automatically in your own Alpaca account. Open the builder, add SDY, and see how a rule such as “hold it only above its 200-day average” would have done. Strategies run on daily prices and hold US stocks and ETFs only.

The details#

Prices come from Tactfolio’s stored daily prices for SDY. Each close is adjusted for splits, and dividends are reinvested on the day the fund pays them out. CAGR is the steady yearly return that turns the starting value into the ending value. Volatility is the yearly standard deviation of daily returns.

Fund facts come from SPDR (State Street). We checked them on October 17, 2026. Read what a backtest simulates and how to read drawdown and CAGR for more on these measures.