PowerShares Offers Four Dividend Achievers ETFs

PowerShares Capital Management LLC offers four exchange-traded funds (ETFs) based on the stocks that comprise the Mergents Dividend Achievers. To qualify as a Achiever, a U.S. company must have increased annual dividends for ten or more consecutive years, a foreign company for five or more consecutive years.

The following PowerShares ETFs track benchmarks maintained by the financial research firm Mergent Inc:

PowerShares International Dividend Achievers™ Portfolio (PID) - 97 foreign stocks listed in the United States with five years of increasing dividends.
PowerShares Dividend Achievers™ Portfolio (PFM) - over 300 stocks with a minimum of 10 consecutive years of annual dividend increases.
PowerShares High Growth Rate Dividend Achievers™ Portfolio (PHJ) - 100 United States stocks with the fastest growing dividends for the past 10 years.
PowerShares High Yield Equity Dividend Achievers™ Portfolio (PEY) - 50 of the highest yielding stocks.

These funds are intended for the investor who is interested in income or wants to accumulate shares through dividend reinvestment. The funds pays safe dividends and have very low annual fees which will not significantly reduce total returns.

Because the composition of each fund differs, check the performance results of a fund before you buy it.

Updated August 19, 2008.