Independent student research — not an investment firm or financial advice
Position · Index Hedge
Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD)
1.31% of book · Avg. cost $32.24 · Return +3.82%
SCHD tracks a dividend-focused index rather than running a business, so a competitor comparison in the sense used elsewhere on this site doesn't apply.
Investment Thesis
The Thesis
SCHD screens for U.S. companies with a record of sustained dividend payments and quality fundamentals, tilting toward income and lower-volatility equities — not a stock pick, but ballast/income-tilted diversification that gives the book a tilt the rest of my holdings don't provide.
The Catalyst
None — SCHD isn't held for an event or trend, it's held alongside SPY, VOO, and QQQ in the index-hedge sleeve specifically for its income tilt and lower volatility.
The Risk
The position is roughly flat on cost right now, which is exactly fine for something whose job is ballast, not alpha — but that also means it won't meaningfully cushion the book if the rest of it draws down hard.
The Connection
Deliberately theme-agnostic — held as income-tilted ballast specifically because it doesn't correlate with the AI/semiconductor cluster that dominates the rest of the book.
Structure
Index fund — tracks a screened U.S. high-dividend-yield equity index
Expense ratio (MER)
0.06%
Dividend yield
3.25%
Shares outstanding (fund)
3.03B
Expense ratio and dividend yield via Blossom. P/E and EPS aren't meaningful metrics for a broad index fund the way they are for a single company — Blossom doesn't show them either, so I'm not forcing them in here.
$26.21 (52-wk low)$32.39$32.92 (52-wk high)
Why I hold it
SCHD isn't a stock pick — it's a dividend-focused index fund I hold as ballast/income-tilted diversification alongside SPY, VOO, and QQQ in the index-hedge sleeve. It screens for U.S. companies with a record of sustained dividend payments and quality fundamentals, which gives the book a small tilt toward income and lower-volatility equities that the rest of my holdings don't provide. The position is roughly flat on cost right now, which is exactly fine for something whose job is ballast, not alpha.
Macro Stress-Test: How SCHD Fits In
The book-level stress test runs four scenarios against the whole portfolio. Here is exactly where SCHD sits in each one — named directly, or not addressed at all. Nothing below is invented for this page; it’s the same book-level analysis, filtered to this position.
Current positioning, no shock assumed
SCHD is 1.27% of the book, in the Index Funds sector. See the full base-case positioning on Holdings.
Where this position sits in the book’s least-defended scenario
SCHD is part of the 19.18% index-hedge sleeve the book-level analysis names as its only broad mitigant here — and that analysis is explicit that broad-market ballast is not an inflation-specific hedge. This position provides diversification, not inflation protection.
Index-hedge ballast, not inflation-specific
Where this position sits in the book’s best-defended scenario
SCHD is a liquid, publicly traded security like every other position in the book — no private equity, no illiquid credit, no lockups. A genuinely broad market drawdown would still hurt (the book’s beta is 1.79), but this position doesn’t face the structural exit friction an illiquid holding would.
Liquid, publicly traded
Where this position sits in the book’s largest concentrated risk
Not part of the semiconductor sleeve this scenario is built around. SCHD sits in Index Funds, so a Taiwan-centered supply disruption would hit this position only indirectly, if at all, through broader market effects.