ETFs (and other ASX-listed Products) that Pay Monthly Distributions

Some time ago I wrote about the Betashares Australian Dividend Harvestor Fund (HVST), which as of now has a very high dividend yield (about 9%) and pays monthly distributions. Monthly distributions are very convenient if you are living off passive income because, for day-to-day expenses such as food, it is more convenient to receive your payment more frequently. Most ETFs pay distributions every quarter, which is quite a long time to wait.

That being said, quarterly or even yearly distributions may be convenient for spending on things you spend less frequently on e.g. a holiday. Suppose you had $100k invested returning 4% dividends. This is $4k per year but paid monthly this would be $333 per month, which means if you wanted to save up for a holiday you’d need to take that $333 per month and put it in a savings account and wait for it to accumulate to $4k before you take an annual holiday. However, if you put that $100k into an ETF that pays yearly distributions, then you’d get $4k once a year, and when you get your $4k, you can go ahead and book your flights and hotels online. The fact that the ETF pays yearly rather than monthly distributions acts to force you to save for those expenses that occur yearly (typically a holiday).

Therefore, I think it is useful to have a mixture of distribution payment frequencies to match what you spend your money on. However, when it comes to financial independence, you shouldn’t focus on holidays first. You should focus on the necessities, and even though I am an atheist, I like to quote 1 Timothy 6:8 in this instance: “If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.” In many translations of the bible, it claims that you should be content with “food and raiment,” and the word “raiment” is often translated as referring to clothing, but really raiment refers to covering, i.e. not only clothing but also shelter i.e. four walls and a roof over your head. Why am I talking about food and coverings? Because generally food and rent consist of payments we make frequently. For most people, food spending consists of going to the local supermarket to buy e.g. bread. Rent or mortgage payments are usually monthly payments to the landlord or bank. As such, it is better to have monthly passive income if you’re living off passive income while covering the necessities of life.

In my greed to secure monthly passive income to cover the cost of necessities such as bread and almond milk, I invested a reasonable amount of money into HVST, which at the time was paying about 12% dividend yield. However, the problem with high yield funds is that they are high risk funds as well. In fact, most ASX-listed products that pay high monthly passive income perform quite badly in terms of capital preservation. This may be due to the rising interest rate environment. Many high-yield ETFs and LICs that have managed to achieve reasonable capital preservation have been those that pay quarterly distributions e.g. VHY, IHD, STW, and BKI. The reason I believe this is the case is that stocks provides higher yield than e.g. bonds, but there is greater risk in stocks. Unless we are talking about variable-rate bonds, most bonds are fixed-income products, e.g. a government bond pays you a fixed coupon amount. You can therefore rely on this coupon always being paid. There is little uncertainty. Dividends from stocks, however, may vary depending on market volatility and business activity. For example, recently BHP announced it was buying back shares and paying a special dividend thanks to the sale of a US shale asset to BP. If a fund manager holds BHP, it may receive a huge dividend one day and then the next month may receive little dividends. If economic conditions are challenging, dividends may be cut. As such, if a fund manager were relying on stock dividends to pay monthly distributions, there may be times when dividends are low, which means that in order to maintain the high monthly payout, the fund needs to eat into original capital.

When focusing on financial independence, it make sense to focus on the necessities first, i.e. food and raiment rather than holidays, and given that it is more helpful to have monthly passive income to fund these expenses, I believe it is necessary to look instead at medium-yield (not high-yield) exchange-traded products that pay monthly distributions. Assuming food costs $300 per month and rent costs $700 per month then this means you need $1000 per month for necessities, which means $12k per year. You only need $150k invested earning 8% to get this. This is the allure of high-yield funds. However, with high yield comes high risk, so a medium-yield fund may provide a good compromise.

Remembering that investing has a risk-return tradeoff, and remembering that food and raiment are necessities (you cannot live without food and covering), we should not rely on high-yield high-risk investment to fund necessities. We should at least rely on medium-yield medium-risk investments to fund necessities.

I make these comments because recently I have purchased Betashares’s hybrid ETF (HBRD), which pays about 4% monthly. I have found that HBRD pays very reliable income, almost the same every month whereas virtually all other investments pay variable passive income. Looking at the Bloomberg price chart of HBRD below, you can see that HBRD (in black) is somewhat correlated to the XJO (represented in orange by the STW ETF) but with a lower volatility (or lower beta). This makes sense because hybrids are lower risk than stocks but are riskier than bonds. (Hence they are hybrids as they have bond-like and stock-like characteristics.)

In fact, Betashares seems to have learned its lesson from HVST and have introduced a slew of other medium-risk ETFs (e.g. CRED and now BNDS) that pay monthly distirbutions to complement their existing inventory of low-risk income ETFs (e.g. AAA and QPON) and high-risk income ETFs (HVST, YMAX, EINC, and RINC).

Below is a table of ASX-listed products (mostly ETFs, LICs, and LITs) that pay monthly distributions. The products below are sorted by risk/yield. I have used my judgement to classify these are high, medium or low yield. Generally high-yield investments derive income from stocks and pay around 5% to 10% yield, medium-risk investments derive income from hybrids and corporate bonds and pay around 3% to 5% yield whereas low-risk investments derive income from cash deposits and government bonds and pay around 1% to 3% yield. Some of these products invest in highly risky areas e.g. QRI will invest in commercial real estate debt. Note that some of these investments have not been released yet and that this is a personal list that I keep that may not include all ASX-listed investments that pay monthly passive income. If I have missed any, please notify me in the comments section.

ASX Ticker	Name	Yield
HVST	BetaShares Australian Dividend Harvester Fund	High
PL8	Plato Income Maximiser Limited	High
QRI	Qualitas Real Estate Income Fund	High
EIGA	Einvest Income Generator Fund	High
GCI	Gryphon Capital Income Trust	High
MXT	MCP Master Income Trust	High
HBRD	BetaShares Active Australian Hybrids Fund	Medium
CRED	BetaShares Australian Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF	Medium
BNDS	BetaShares Legg Mason Australian Bond Fund	Medium
QPON	BetaShares Australian Bank Senior Floating Rate Bond ETF	Low
AAA	BetaShares Australian High Interest Cash ETF	Low
BILL	iShares Core Cash ETF	Low

Disclosure: My investments include BHP, IHD, HVST, HBRD, and AAA.