Vanguard Australian Shares High Yield is a compelling and efficient option. The cost-value balance of the strategy is a solid strength. At 0.35% per year, it is currently one of the cheapest unlisted products offering domestic high-yield equity exposure. Vanguard aims to own every stock in the FTSE Australia High Dividend Yield Index, an index Vanguard has exclusive rights to replicate. Vanguard choose to keep the some of the index’s construction rules undisclosed to ward off speculative market participants looking to capitalize on the semiannual index changes before they have been completed within the strategy.

A well-managed, close replication of the FTSE Australia High Dividend Index

Vanguard Australian Shares High Yield replicates the FTSE Australia High Dividend Index, offering investors an above-average yield in a passive, tax-efficient vehicle. The benchmark leans toward the highest-dividend payers, excluding property trusts. The index provider ranks all dividend-paying stocks based on their dividend yield forecast for the next year and constructs the index using stocks that make up the top 50% of the float-adjusted market capitalization. Industries are capped at 40% and individual stocks at 10%. The index is rebalanced semiannually, and in 2018, it changed its rules around buying and selling so that stocks are added or removed more gradually.

This should increase the portfolio to around 55 names from 45 and reduce stock turnover, though it will likely remain higher than market-cap-weighted index funds. Vanguard’s global presence allows the Australian team to leverage the U.S. team’s extensive index-tracking experience. It is worth noting the risk of dividend traps may be exacerbated in a portfolio that has an automated bias to high dividend-payers. The index attempts to minimize this risk primarily through sector and stock caps that enforce a minimum level of diversification by incorporating consensus yield forecasts and by excluding companies not forecast to pay dividends in the next 12 months.

A top-heavy portfolio with large sector and company biases

The biggest sector exposure is financial services, at around 39%-40% of the portfolio. The fund’s exposure to materials has historically been volatile. Following dividend cuts in the sector, exposure dropped to 4% in 2016 from 20%. However, a fall in Rio Tinto’s share price and corresponding increase in yield saw the stock return to the portfolio in June 2017, increasing the fund’s exposure to the sector to 21%. That came at the expense of industrials exposure, which fell to zero. As of 30 June 2021, materials exposure was at 23%. 

Mixed results over the long term

Vanguard has fared relatively well over the long term, but short- and medium-term results have been a drag. Moreover, the annual return track of the strategy is visibly inconsistent as compared with its category index. In 2012 and 2013, the strategy delivered 24.5% and 26.5%, respectively–incredible relative and absolute returns. But investors should be cautiously optimistic about a repeat of such performance as the fund delivered equally subdued relative performance in 2014, followed by a 4.22% decline in 2015 and category benchmark relative underperformance of negative 1.2% in 2016.

Source: Morning star

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Any advice/ information provided is general in nature only and does not take into account the personal financial situation, objectives or needs of any particular person.