Mebane Faber's "Shareholder Yield Fund" (SYLD): Thoughts?

[cinghiale]

A recent thread on free e-books mentioned Mebane Faber's book(let) entitled Shareholder Yield: A Better Approach to Dividend Investing. I scooped it up during its "free phase" (though, with Amazon Prime, it still can be read for free) and finally had the opportunity to read it this week.

Has anyone else read this book? Any thoughts on the strategy it highlights? Has anyone here on the forum been convinced enough to invest in the ETF Faber manages (ticker: SYLD) and which follows the stock selection strategy he outlines? If so, what were your main reasons for doing so? And for those who gave the book (and the fund) a perusal and decided against any investment, what were your main reasons?

I know, I know, I know... this is a managed fund, with an ER (.59%) that is many times that of the Vanguard indices, and that smacks of the next gimmicky approach. I grant all the "givens" here. That said, we have plenty of Wellesley Income folks here. And quite a few fans of dividend paying stocks. I'm going to go back and re-read the Faber book in a few days. In the meantime, I am looking for the wisdom of the forum. At present, I am considering a small position in this fund.

[hlfo718]

I do enjoy his blog. I don't plan on investing in the etf but if you allocate a small portion it wouldn't be the end of the world even though is like 10x the cost of VTI.

[stlutz]

The "shareholder yield" concept is a much more complete picture of what a company is returning to shareholders than just the dividend yield is. And the backtesting results certainly work better.

I would not consider this fund as I don't invest in anything that has an ER greater than .2%. Costs are guaranteed. Whether a strategy that has worked in the past will work in the future is not.

[linuxizer]

The "shareholder yield" concept is a much more complete picture of what a company is returning to shareholders than just the dividend yield is. And the backtesting results certainly work better.

I would not consider this fund as I don't invest in anything that has an ER greater than .2%. Costs are guaranteed. Whether a strategy that has worked in the past will work in the future is not.

But is it equally value-y?

(Asked as someone who generally believes that the dividend bonus comes from what amounts to a value tilt).

[dziuniek]

10+ year old thread but for those interested, The 2nd edition is now free as a podcast (aka audiobook read by him) from Meb's website.

[nisiprius]

There's a 2022 thread, gougou's shareholder yield strategy. It doesn't seem to mention Faber, either his writings or his fund. It might be interesting, though.

As for SYLD itself:

Cambria's factsheet for SYLD benchmarks it to the S&P 500 index.

The performance to date of SYLD (blue) compared to VOO, the Vanguard 500 Index Fund (red) does not impress me. From inception to date: about the same return, much more volatility, seriously deeper drawdown in 2020, much lower Sharpe and Sortino ratios.

Source

[arcticpineapplecorp.]

10+ year old thread but for those interested, The 2nd edition is now free as a podcast (aka audiobook read by him) from Meb's website.

And on page 5 he used the word cuatro instead of quatro.

[dziuniek]

There's a 2022 thread, gougou's shareholder yield strategy. It doesn't seem to mention Faber, either his writings or his fund. It might be interesting, though.

As for SYLD itself:

Cambria's factsheet for SYLD benchmarks it to the S&P 500 index.

The performance to date of SYLD (blue) compared to VOO, the Vanguard 500 Index Fund (red) does not impress me. From inception to date: about the same return, much more volatility, seriously deeper drawdown in 2020, much lower Sharpe and Sortino ratios.

Source

Going to have to agree.

Idea vs. implementation, maybe cost, not sure.