| # Symbol | Fund name | Price | 1Y TotalReturn | YTDTotal Return | 1MTotal Return | 6MTotal Return | YieldTTM | Frequency |
|---|
Most dividend trackers rank by yield alone — the bigger the number, the better the rank. This tracker does the opposite. Total return is the primary metric, because a 60% yield means nothing if the fund loses 50% of its value.
The "High-Yield, Best Total Return ETF's" strategy focuses on dividend ETFs that deliver both: genuinely high income and positive capital growth. Funds that sacrifice share price to pay dividends are flagged as yield traps and surfaced as warnings, not recommendations.
Every ETF in the leaderboard is sorted descending by 1Y Total Return by default. ETFs with less than 12 months of history show "—" for that column and sort to the bottom, but remain visible because they may already have strong 6M momentum.
A yield trap is a fund that looks attractive on paper because of its high distribution yield, but is actively destroying capital. The rule applied here:
When 1Y Total Return is negative, the ETF is flagged in the leaderboard and counted in the yield trap indicator. No matter how high the yield, if you lost money overall, the distribution did not compensate — these are funds to avoid.
Why is the rule based on total return only? Because yield alone does not tell you whether you made or lost money. Every ETF in this tracker already yields 6% or more — they are all high-yield by definition. What separates a good high-yield fund from a trap is whether it preserved or grew your capital. If the 1Y Total Return is negative, the fund paid out distributions while losing more value than it returned — that is a yield trap, regardless of how large the yield number looks.