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Personally, if I was going to have a ETF type portfolio and I was not worried about dividends, I would have 20 -25% in DBXUS. Just so I can smile when the rand tanks.

I'm waiting to see what absa offers in terms of offshore investing instead of the DBX trackers. I just can't pay those free for an etf that should be less that half that price.

It's my core ETF JohhnyH. At the moment I'm about 40% DIVTRX, 30% STXIND and 30% FOORD equity. Once my 3 year holding period for FOORD expires early next year, unless I can somehow buy something international without paying massive fees, that 30% will also go into DIVTRX.

My thinking is this:
I need an ETF that is well diversified, with reasonable costs as my core. The STXIND is out, with it holding 19%+ in both SAB and NPN. And if SAB leaves, then the NPN holding will rise to close on 23%. I'm not comfortable with that. The STX40 is out for similar reasons, as is the DIVIND. I won't hold the DBX trackers, I just can't pay those fees, plus have you seen the spreads on offer. I also looked at the RMB midcap, which had relatively good performance for some time, but it also had fee and spread issues for me.

The DIVTRX on the other hand is well diversified, At worst you end up with 5% per share, currently it's under 3% per share, across a number of sectors. The costs are relatively low at 0.39%, and the spread is also reasonably small now, around 8c.

Then of course we all want decent performance. DIVTRX has done relatively well in the past, but with a "smart beta" etf, you're looking more at the methodology. DIVTRX is based on the S&P dividends aristocrats index. In SA this means all companies that have held or increased dividends in 5 years. This is turn is based on the S&P 500 dividends aristocrats model, which modeled on the successful strategy employed by a number of successful dividend investors.

As you can see, since 1990 it's either tracked the 500, or beaten the 500, apart for some anomoly in the early 2000's. And it most likely paid higher dividends in the process. As always past performance may not be future performance, but for me, I'm quite comfortable with the strategy. If a company does badly and cuts their dividend, they'll be out in no more than 6 months. I like this as it's a potentially fast filter, and I don't have to pay capital gains for dumping the bad share. So for now, I'll keep sticking my money into it, and keep hoping for decent growth while paying above average dividends.

I may change this in future if a better product comes around, but so far there's nothing I'd rather invest in. If anyone has a pointer as to what to look at I'd love to hear it.

Satrix have introduced a unit trust that looks quite interesting -

The Quality Index Fund tracks the S&P SA Quality index which aims to capture the stock performance of high quality South Africa companies based on 1. Future profitability 2. Integrity of their earnings 3. Financial robustness.
Shares that are deemed to show a good quality score based on certain financial ratios such as ROE, ROA, GP, Accrual Ratios, Changes in CF and accruals. These are ranked and the top quintile is included in the index.

Simon Brown recommends the BBET equal-weighted ETF (top 40 shares) as a core holding - he then selects satellite "awesome", hold-forever stocks and niche ETFs like PROPTX10 to outperform the top40 index. JohnnyH, have you considered DBXWD? It's almost 60% USA, maybe 30% Europe & the rest developed economies. Or subscribe to Astoria IPO next week (a portfolio of worldwide stocks managed by Anchor; but with a TER of 1.6% expensive for some)!

I guess negative sentiments about Div Aristocrats will come out when it's underperforming, nevertheless I preferred the look of it with just the 25-odd stocks. If only the 5-year period were extended to exclude those horrible cyclical mining companies! But I like the ETF's quality bias & that you're being paid a dividend to be patient.

What is the last day to trade to qualify for the December dividend?