Vanguard High Dividend Yield provides a delicate balance between pursuing yield and mitigating risk. Weighting stocks by market cap steers the fund toward more stable, large-cap stocks and away from those whose dividends may be distressed. However, while this fund has a strong process, there are risks lingering at the margin that prevent us from assigning it our highest-conviction positive rating. As such, we are downgrading our Morningstar Analyst Rating for the fund's exchange-traded fund share class to Silver from Gold. Its Admiral share class maintains a Silver rating.
Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF VYM
Morningstar’s Analysis
The Morningstar Analysis section contains a thorough evaluation of an investment’s merits and drawbacks and often discusses the most important or decisive factors leading to the fund’s overall rating.
The Morningstar Analysis section contains a thorough evaluation of an investment’s merits and drawbacks and often discusses the most important or decisive factors leading to the fund’s overall rating.
Will VYM outperform in future?
Get our overall rating based on a fundamental assessment of the pillars below.
Process Pillar
The Process Pillar is our assessment of how sensible, clearly defined, and repeatable VYM’s performance objective and investment process is for both security selection and portfolio construction.
People Pillar
The People Pillar is our evaluation of the VYM management team’s experience and ability. We find that high-quality management teams deliver superior performance relative to their benchmarks and/or peers.
Parent Pillar
The Parent Pillar is our rating of VYM’s parent organization’s priorities and whether they’re in line with investors’ interests.
Higher yield with lower risk.
