by This week, we’re looking back at three discussions we held earlier this year on Investing Insights about exchange-traded funds that income investors might find attractive. Morningstar ETF specialists, Bryan Armour and Dan Sotiroff, talked about dividend, bond, and covered-call ETFs in 2025.
The questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Dividend ETFs (Feb. 14, 2025)
Key question from episode:
Ivanna Hampton: How do you find a dividend ETF that provides the optimal, or just the right amount, of factor exposure?
Bryan Armour: You’re looking for some value and low-volatility exposure without sacrificing quality. That is really what you want to do. And the best way to do that is to look for ETFs that can control the risks inherent to the strategy, then also take steps to diversify the portfolio more broadly, and limit the implementation costs of the strategy. So, low turnover, low fee, all the normal things that we look for in high-quality funds.
ETF picks from this episode:
Vanguard Dividend Appreciation Index Fund ETF Shares VIG
Vanguard International Dividend Appreciation ETF VIGI
Vanguard High Dividend Yield Index Fund ETF Shares VYM
Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF SCHD
Bond ETFs (Nov. 14, 2025)
Key question from episode:
Hampton: What makes a core bond ETF a solid building block for a portfolio?
Daniel Sotiroff: I think the first thing to consider is the role of bonds in your portfolio. I think most people are using them as ballast to balance out the risk that they have with their stocks. And whatever allocation is right for you is sort of something you have to answer yourself and talk to your advisor. But that’s really the main thing. And it’s for two reasons.
One, they’re less correlated with stocks. The correlations are very low, if not negative in some cases. Then they’re just less volatile overall. The standard deviations, the statistical measures of risk that we tend to use in evaluating investments, are just going to be much lower than those of stocks. That’s really sort of the basic component that bonds serve in any investment portfolio. When you look at core bond funds, they check both of those boxes really well.
ETF picks from this episode:
Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF SharesBND
iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETFAGG
Fidelity Total Bond ETFFBND
JPMorgan Income ETF JPIE
Vanguard High-Yield Active ETFVGHY
Covered-Call ETFs (July 25, 2025)
Hampton: Why are retirees and other income investors drawn to these ETFs? What’s making them so popular in 2025?
Sotiroff: It’s really an income story, right? You look at the yields on some of these, and that’s what’s really attracting people. In the past, it was always bond funds, then bond yields went to zero when we were in the zero-interest-rate environment in the 2010s. Then, dividend funds were all the rage for a while because the yields were higher on those, so people chased after those. Now, it’s covered-call or option-income strategies because the yields are incrementally higher above those of the dividend funds or bond funds. That’s really what the story is; it’s people who are just chasing after the income or the yield.
ETF option from this episode:
JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF JEPI
