Finance

Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Kroger have charged customers who ask for cash back in recent years.
Their cash-back fees amount to more than $90 million a year, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reports.
Such fees may disadvantage those in banking deserts, where they don’t have easy access to cash for free. Retailers say they offer a lifeline to such consumers, who may not otherwise be able to get cash.

A Dollar General store in Germantown, New York, on Nov. 30, 2023.
Angus Mordant/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Three of the nation’s largest retailers — Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Kroger — charge fees to customers who ask for “cash back” at check-out, amounting to more than $90 million a year, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Many retailers offer a cash-back option to consumers who pay for purchases with a debit or pre-paid card.

But levying a fee for the service may be “exploiting” certain customers, especially those who live in so-called banking deserts without easy access to a bank branch or free cash withdrawals, according to a CFPB analysis issued Tuesday.
That dynamic tends to disproportionately impact rural communities, lower earners and people of color, CFPB said.
Not all retailers charge cash-back fees, which can range from $0.50 to upwards of $3 per transaction, according to the agency, which has cracked down on financial institutions in recent years for charging so-called “junk fees.”
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Five of the eight companies that the CFPB sampled offer cash back for free.

They include Albertsons, a grocer; the drugstore chains CVS and Walgreens; and discount retailers Target and Walmart. (Kroger proposed a $25 billion merger with Albertsons in 2022, but that deal is pending in court.)
“Fees to get cash back are just one more nickel and dime that all starts to add up,” said Adam Rust, director of financial services at the Consumer Federation of America, an advocacy group.
“It just makes it harder and harder to get by,” he said. “It’s thousands of little cuts at a time.”

Luis Alvarez | Digitalvision | Getty Images

A spokesperson for Dollar General said cash back can help save customers money relative to “alternative, non-retail options” like check cashing or ATM fees.
“While not a financial institution, Dollar General provides cashback options at our more than 20,000 stores across the country as a service to customers who may not have convenient access to their primary financial institution,” the spokesperson said.
Spokespeople for Kroger and Dollar Tree (which operates Family Dollar and Dollar Tree stores) didn’t respond to requests for comment from CNBC.
Kroger, Dollar General and Dollar Tree were respectively the No. 4, 17 and 19 largest U.S. retailers by sales in 2023, according to the National Retail Federation, a trade group.

Cash back is popular

The practice of charging for cash back is relatively new, Rust explained.
For example, in 2019, Kroger Co. rolled out a $0.50 fee on cash back of $100 or less and $3.50 for amounts between $100 and $300, according to CFPB.
This applied across brands like Kroger, Fred Meyers, Ralph’s, QFC and Pick ‘N Save, among others.
However, Kroger Co. began charging for cash back at its Harris Teeter brand in January 2024: $0.75 for amounts of $100 or less and $3 for larger amounts up to $200, CFPB said.

Cash withdrawals from retail locations is the second most popular way to access cash, representing 17% of transactions over 2017-22, according to a CFPB analysis of the Diary and Survey of Consumer Payment Choice.
ATMs were the most popular, at 61%.
But there are some key differences between retail and ATM withdrawals, according to CFPB and consumer advocates.
For instance, relatively low caps on cash-back amounts make it challenging to limit the impact of fees by spreading them over larger withdrawals, they said.
The average retail cash withdrawal was $34 from 2017-22, while it was $126 at ATMs, CFPB said.

Banking deserts are growing

However, retailers may be the only reasonable way to get cash for consumers who live in banking deserts, experts say.
More than 12 million people — about 3.8% of the U.S. population — lived in a banking desert in 2023, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
That figure is up from 11.5 million, or 3.5% of the population, in 2019, it found.
Generally speaking, a banking desert constitutes any geographic area without a local bank branch. Such people don’t live within 10 miles of a physical bank branch. The rise of digital banking, accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, has led many banks to close their brick-and-mortar store fronts, according to Lali Shaffer, a payments risk expert at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
These deserts “may hurt vulnerable populations” who are already less likely to have access to online and mobile banking, she wrote recently.

Retailers blame banks

Retail advocates say banks are to blame for cash-back fees.
Merchants must pay fees to banks whenever customers swipe a debit card or credit card for purchases. Those fees might be 2% to 4% of a transaction, for example.
Since cash-back totals are included in the total transaction price, merchants also pay fees to banks on any cash that consumers request.

The “vast majority” of retailers don’t charge for cash back, and therefore take a financial loss to offer this service to customers for free, said Doug Kantor, general counsel at the National Association of Convenience Stores and a member of the Merchants Payments Coalition Executive Committee.
“Banks have abandoned many of these communities and they’re gouging retailers just for taking people’s cards or giving people cash,” he said.
But consumer advocates say this calculus overlooks the benefit that retailers get by offering cash back,
“You’d think they’d see this as a free way to get customers: coming into [the] store because the bank branch isn’t there,” Rust said. “Instead they’re going ahead and charging another junk fee.” More

At the annual gathering of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, attendees enjoy R&R: research and recreation. The latter usually involves a pleasant hike by the lake, but last year a rainstorm soaked the assembled economists. When they returned on August 23rd a remarkably accurate weather forecast helped them dodge a shower and enjoy some sun. This was apt. A year ago inflation was still too high and investors were placing bets that interest rates would have to stay “higher for longer”, the economic equivalent of a drenching. This year inflation looks all but subdued and central bankers—whose optimistic prognostications have also come to pass—have started cutting interest rates. More

Klarna said it made an adjusted operating profit of 673 million Swedish krona ($66.1 million) in the six months through June 2024, up from a loss of 456 million krona in the same period a year ago.
The company said it was focused on “sustainable, profitable growth and leveraging AI to lower costs.”
After leaning into AI, Klarna said its average revenue per employee increased 73% year-over-year, to 7 million Swedish krona.

“Buy-now, pay-later” firm Klarna aims to return to profit by summer 2023.
Jakub Porzycki | NurPhoto | Getty Images

Klarna said it posted a profit in the first half of the year, swinging into the black from a loss last year as the buy now, pay later pioneer edges closer toward its hotly anticipated stock market debut.
In results published Tuesday, Klarna said that it made an adjusted operating profit of 673 million Swedish krona ($66.1 million) in the six months through June 2024, up from a loss of 456 million krona in the same period a year ago. Revenue, meanwhile, grew 27% year-on-year to 13.3 billion krona.

On a net income basis, Klarna reported a 333 million Swedish krona loss. However, Klarna cites adjusted operating income as its primary metric for profitability as it better reflects “underlying business activity.”
Klarna is one of the biggest players in the so-called buy now, pay later sector. Alongside peers PayPal, Block’s Afterpay, and Affirm, these companies give consumers the option to pay for purchases via interest-free monthly installments, with merchants covering the cost of service via transaction fees.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna’s CEO and co-founder, said the company saw strong revenue growth in the U.S. in particular, where sales jumped 38% thanks to a ramp-up in merchant onboarding.

“Klarna’s massive global network continues to expand rapidly, with millions of new consumers joining and 68k new merchant partners,” Siemiatkowski said in a statement Tuesday.

Using AI to cut costs

The company achieved its adjusted operating profit “by focusing on sustainable, profitable growth and leveraging AI to lower costs,” he added.

Klarna has been one of the forerunners in the corporate world when it comes to touting the benefits of using AI to increase productivity and cut operating costs.
On Tuesday, the company said that its average revenue per employee over the previous twelve months increased 73% year-over-year, to 7 million Swedish krona.
It comes as Klarna tries to pitch itself as a primary banking provider for clients as it approaches a much-anticipated initial public offering.
The firm earlier this month launched its own checking account-like product, called Klarna balance, in a bid to persuade consumers to move more of their financial lives onto its app.

The move highlighted how Klarna is looking to diversify beyond its core buy now, pay later product, for which it is primarily known.
Klarna has yet to set a fixed timeline for the stock market listing, which is widely expected to be held in the U.S.
However, in an interview with CNBC’s “Closing Bell” in February, Siemiatkowski said an IPO this year was “not impossible.”
“We still have a few steps and work ahead of ourselves,” he said. “But we’re keen on becoming a public company.”
Separately, Klarna earlier this year offloaded its proprietary checkout technology business, which allows merchants to offer online payments, to a consortium of investors led by Kamjar Hajabdolahi, CEO and founding partner of Swedish venture capital firm BLQ Invest.
The move, which Klarna called a “strategic” step, effectively removed competition for rival online checkout services including Stripe, Adyen, Block, and Checkout.com. More

The basic version of the Mona M03 electric coupe starts at 119,800 yuan ($16,812), with a driving range of 515 kilometers (320 miles) and some parking assist features.
A version of the Mona M03 with the more advanced “Max” driver assist features and a driving range of 580 kilometers will sell for 155,800 yuan.
In comparison, Tesla’s cheapest car — the Model 3 — costs 231,900 yuan in China, after a price cut in April.

Chinese electric car company Xpeng displays its mass-market Mona M03 coupe inside a headquarters’ showroom in Guangzhou, China, on Aug. 26, 2024.
CNBC | Evelyn Cheng

BEIJING — Chinese electric car company Xpeng on Tuesday announced that its mass-market brand Mona will start selling some models for less than $17,000.
The basic version of the Mona M03 electric coupe will be listed at 119,800 yuan ($16,812), with a driving range of 515 kilometers (320 miles) and some parking assist features.

A version of the Mona M03 with the more advanced “Max” driver assist features and a driving range of 580 kilometers will sell for 155,800 yuan.
In comparison, Tesla’s cheapest car — the Model 3 — costs 231,900 yuan in China, after a price cut in April.
Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng did not specify a launch date for the standard version of the car in his presentation on Tuesday. The company told investors last week on an earnings call that mass deliveries would begin shortly after Tuesday’s announcement.
Presales of the Mona M03 began on Aug. 8.

The Mona M03 standard driver-assist supports parking, including parallel parking. The company says it uses a range of automatic sensors, cameras and light detection and ranging sensors.

The Max version of driver assist includes features such as automatically backing up a car to a designated position in a dead-end street with the push of a button. Xpeng also plans for it to support the remote control of entering and exiting a narrow parking spot.
That Max version is set to begin deliveries after the Lunar New Year holiday in 2025, CEO He said. The Chinese holiday runs from late January to early February next year.
Xpeng’s driver-assist technology is widely considered one of the best currently available in China. Tesla’s version, marketed as “full self-driving,” isn’t fully accessible in China, although it is widely expected to be released in the coming months.
The Xpeng CEO’s presentation on Tuesday also commemorated the 10th anniversary of Xpeng’s founding. Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi’s founder Lei Jun was among those in attendance
CEO He said the brand name Mona stands for “Made of new AI.” He emphasized that over the next decade, Xpeng would focus on developing artificial intelligence for cars.
The company also said Tuesday that it plans to reveal its second-generation humanoid robot in October. It also revealed its own chip, but did not specify what nanometer process — or level of production technology — is used in its manufacturing.
Premium Chinese electric car startup Nio in late July said it had finished designing a five nanometer automotive-grade chip, the NX9031. The company had teased the chip in December, and plans to use it in its high-end ET9 sedan, set for delivery in 2025.

Collaboration with Didi

Xpeng built Mona using tech it acquired from ride-hailing company Didi in August 2023.
Wu Zhefeng, a Mona project manager, told reporters Monday that the basic version of driver-assist technology in the M03 comes from Didi, while the more advanced version was made by Xpeng.
Since the battery is the priciest component of an electric car, he said Xpeng was able to bring the cost down for Mona thanks in part to efforts to boost energy efficiency. The coupe uses BYD’s popular “blade battery,” Wu said.
He said the brand is focused on young people, two or three years after graduation.
Nearly half of similar cars available in China within this price range are used for ride-hailing, according to Wu. While electric car companies such as BYD have worked with Didi to promote their cars among drivers on the ride-hailing platform, he said Mona would remain focused on consumer drivers.
BYD, which has quickly become a giant in China’s electric car industry, sells cars across a range of prices and models, including many hybrid-powered versions. Consumers in China have increasingly preferred hybrids to battery-only cars as anxiety persists over how far they can drive on a single charge.
Geely-owned electric car company Zeekr announced earlier this month that it would launch its first hybrid car next year.
Other Chinese companies have launched cars this year in direct competition with Tesla.
Nio, which has focused on premium electric cars, in May announced a lower-priced brand Onvo. Its first car, the L60 SUV, is set to begin deliveries in September. The L60 starts at 219,900 yuan (US$30,439) versus the Model Y’s 249,900 yuan (US$34,617), according to prices shared in May. 
Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi, meanwhile, in March released its first electric car, the SU7 sedan for 215,900 yuan.
— CNBC’s Sonia Heng contributed to this report. More

Hundreds of Volkswagen staff are spending time at Xpeng as the German auto giant and Chinese startup work to create electric cars for China, Xpeng co-president Brian Gu told CNBC.
Volkswagen in July 2023 announced a $700 million investment into Xpeng to jointly develop two electric cars for delivery in China, expected in 2026.
The partnership will help Xpeng’s global ambitions, Gu said.

Top Volkswagen and Xpeng executives pose at the German automaker’s launch event in Beijing, China, on Aug. 24, 2024.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

BEIJING — Hundreds of Volkswagen staff are spending time at Xpeng as the German auto giant and Chinese startup work to create electric cars for China, Xpeng co-president Brian Gu told CNBC on Monday.
He also said the partnership will help Xpeng’s global ambitions.

Volkswagen in July 2023 announced a $700 million investment into Xpeng to jointly develop two electric cars for delivery in China in 2026. The vehicles will be based on the platform for Xpeng’s G9, a midsize electric crossover SUV.
The German company’s workers are spending more time at Xpeng’s offices than the startup’s are at Volkswagen’s, Gu said. They are learning about the startup’s technology.
Xpeng’s driver-assist technology is widely considered one of the best currently available in China. Tesla’s version, marketed as “full self-driving,” isn’t fully accessible in China.
The German automaker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Gu emphasized the forthcoming vehicles will be “very different” from those that currently sold by Xpeng or Volkswagen. He said the cars would likely have “better range, charging, much smarter driving, more feature luxury technology, for the same price, potentially.”

China is a key market for Volkswagen. The German automaker delivered 3.2 million cars in China last year, more than the 3.1 million in all of Western Europe.
But like many traditional foreign auto giants, Volkswagen has also struggled in China as the local market rapidly shifts towards battery-only and hybrid powered vehicles. The company’s China deliveries plunged by 19.3% in the quarter ended June from a year ago.
While Xpeng saw second-quarter deliveries grow by 30% year-on-year to more than 30,200 vehicles, the startup lags behind many of its Chinese rivals.

Looking overseas

The company has, meanwhile, pushed overseas, as have Chinese electric car companies BYD and Nio. In the second quarter, Xpeng said its overseas sales exceeded 10% of total revenue for the first time.
Xpeng CEO and Founder He Xiaopeng told Bloomberg last week that the Chinese automaker is in preliminary stages of selecting a site in the European Union as part of future plans for localizing production. The interview was published Tuesday.
Asked for comment, Xpeng said it shared during the Beijing auto show in the spring that the company is considering the possibility of overseas production.
Gu separately told reporters Monday that localization efforts in Southeast Asia would likely happen earlier than any in Europe.
He said the 10-year-old startup aims to reach at least 40 countries and regions by the end of this year, up from around 30 so far.
Xpeng launched in Thailand, Hong Kong and Macao earlier this month. Gu said that this week, the startup is launching in Malaysia, and officially unveiling its entry into Singapore, where Xpeng has a pop-up store.
The startup also plans to enter Australia, New Zealand, the U.K. and Ireland, Gu said.

Supply chain partnership

Speaking on how the Chinese company is learning from its German partner, Gu said that Xpeng staff visit Volkswagen offices in the city of Hefei, the capital of China’s Anhui Province, for design and technology, and Beijing for supply chain discussions.
The two companies in February announced that they had entered a “joint sourcing program” for auto parts.
Xpeng has invested in robotics since 2020 and is now focused on humanlike robots that can handle multiple tasks in factories, Gu told CNBC. He indicated Xpeng would likely reveal more details soon.
But when asked whether that humanoid integration included Volkswagen-related supply chains, he said it was too early for such implementation.
— CNBC’s Sonia Heng contributed to this report. More

BHP’s CEO Mike Henry said he expects China’s property sector to rebound in the upcoming year on the back of favorable government policies.
While acknowledging that the country’s property sector is a “weak point” for steel demand, Henry is optimistic about Chinese government measures announced recently.
“The government has enacted policies recently that are meant to support the property sector… We expect that we could see a turnaround in the property sector in the year ahead,” Henry said.

The company logo adorns the side of the BHP gobal headquarters in Melbourne on February 21, 2023. – The Australian multinational, a leading producer of metallurgical coal, iron ore, nickel, copper and potash, said net profit slumped 32 percent year-on-year to 6.46 billion US dollars in the six months to December 31. (Photo by William WEST / AFP) (Photo by WILLIAM WEST/AFP via Getty Images)
William West | Afp | Getty Images

BHP CEO Mike Henry said he expects China’s property sector to rebound in the upcoming year on the back of favorable government policies.
While acknowledging that the country’s property sector is a “weak point” for steel demand, Henry is optimistic about the suite of measures the Chinese government has announced recently.

“The government has enacted policies recently that are meant to support the property sector… We expect that we could see a turnaround in the property sector in the year ahead,” Henry said.
In recent months, China has rolled out a slew of measures aimed at stabilizing the country’s property sector, which once purportedly accounted for about 25% to 30% of the country’s GDP. For example, Beijing scrapped the nationwide minimum mortgage interest rate and reduced the minimum down payment ratio for first-time buyers to 15%, compared to 20% previously.

In May, the central bank also announced it would allocate 300 billion yuan ($42.25 billion) to financial institutions to lend to local state-owned enterprises for purchasing unsold apartments that have already been completed.
On Saturday, China’s minister of housing Ni Hong said that there is still “great potential and room” for China’s property sector to expand as the country continues to urbanize and demand for good housing continues to grow.
BHP reported a 2% climb in its annual underlying profits on Tuesday, attributing the growth to “solid operational performance and higher commodity prices in key commodities.”

Henry noted, however, there is still “a bit of volatility” with respect to China’s steel demand, which has been under pressure from the property sector. 
But the CEO said there are still other sectors in China that contribute to steel demand that are growing quite healthily, such as infrastructure, shipping and automobiles.
Australian shares of BHP were 1.97% higher in Tuesday trading. More

By law, the IRS must notify the State Department if an individual’s federal tax debt is “seriously delinquent.”
This is a large federal tax debt — of more than $62,000 in 2024 — that the taxpayer has repeatedly ignored.
If taxpayers don’t remedy their overdue bill, the government will generally deny their passport application and can revoke or limit their active passport.

Grace Cary | Moment | Getty Images

Travelers, be warned: The federal government may revoke your passport if you ignore a big tax bill.
Such punishments have become more frequent in recent years, experts said.

Federal law requires the IRS and Treasury Department to notify the State Department if an American has a “seriously delinquent tax debt.”
This is a large federal debt — of more than $62,000 in 2024 — that the taxpayer has repeatedly ignored.
The debt threshold includes aggregate total federal tax liabilities, plus penalties and interest, levied against an individual. It’s adjusted annually for inflation.
The State Department generally won’t issue a new passport and may revoke or limit an existing one in cases of serious delinquency, according to the IRS.

The government typically uses this enforcement mechanism — which has been in place since 2018 — as a sort of last-ditch effort to collect unpaid tax levies, experts said.

Should those debts remain unpaid, the potential consequences are ample: Travelers might not be able to take trips overseas until they’ve resolved their debt. Expats and those who travel abroad for business may have to return to U.S. soil indefinitely until their tax case concludes, for example, experts said.
Revoking a passport is “a step of last resort,” said Troy Lewis, a certified public accountant based in Draper, Utah, and an accounting and tax professor at Brigham Young University.
“How do you get rich folks’ attention regarding paying their taxes? Just make sure they can’t summer in Europe,” he said.

‘It gets people to call the IRS’

Demand to travel abroad has surged as the Covid-19 pandemic has waned. Americans applied for about 21.6 million U.S. passports in fiscal 2023 — a record number, according to the State Department.
Todd Whalen, a CPA based in Denver, has seen tax enforcement efforts involving passports ramp up over the past three years.
“This is becoming more and more of a big deal,” said Whalen, founder of Advanced Tax Solutions, which helps consumers and businesses resolve tax debts. “We’ve gotten several [cases] this year.”
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In one instance, a client only found out his passport had been revoked while at the airport trying to fly to Mexico for a trip to celebrate his son’s high school graduation.
“It works,” Whalen said of the collection effort. “It gets people to call [the IRS].”
A State Department spokesperson declined to provide annual statistics on how many taxpayers had their passports revoked or denied. The IRS didn’t comment by press time.

All other collections must have been ‘exhausted’

J. David Ake | Getty Images News | Getty Images

It can be “quite easy” for overdue tax debts to exceed the $62,000 threshold, according to Virginia La Torre Jeker, an attorney who specializes in U.S. international tax law.
Americans living abroad, for example, may have “significant penalties” for not filing various foreign information returns, she said in an email.
Debts can also include any tax levies owed by individuals, she added. Those may be business taxes for which the taxpayer is personally liable or trust fund recovery penalties, she said. (The latter relate to withheld income and employment taxes like Social Security taxes or railroad retirement taxes.)

How do you get rich folks’ attention regarding paying their taxes? Just make sure they can’t summer in Europe.

Troy Lewis
accounting and tax professor at Brigham Young University

However, revoking a passport isn’t generally the government’s first way to collect such overdue debts, experts said.
The IRS must have already “exhausted” all other typical collection activities, said Lewis, owner of Lewis & Associates, CPAs.
Generally, that would mean the taxpayer hasn’t responded to prior IRS notices of a federal tax lien, for example. (A lien is the government’s legal claim to a debtor’s assets like real estate and other personal property. It isn’t a move to collect said property, though.)
Various courts have upheld the federal government’s ability to revoke passports in order to collect tax debts as constitutional, Lewis said.

He pointed to two recent cases as examples: Franklin v. United States in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and Maehr v. United States Department of State in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
In the former, the defendant, James Franklin, owed about $422,000 in taxes for failing to file accurate tax returns and report a foreign trust of which he was the beneficial owner. The IRS ultimately filed a tax lien and levied his Social Security benefits, and the State Department later revoked his passport.
“It seems pretty well established this is something [the government] can do,” Lewis said.

Travelers have remedies available

The State Department doesn’t revoke a passport straight away. When the IRS certifies debt as seriously delinquent and alerts the State Department of that, it will mail the taxpayer a notice — CP508C — outlining the potential implications of that classification.
If an individual then applies for a passport, the State Department would generally deny and close that application if the person doesn’t make efforts to pay their debts. Such efforts might include paying the balance in full, entering into a payment plan or making a compromise agreement with the IRS.
The debtor would still be able to use an active passport, if they have one, unless notified in writing by the State Department that their passport had been revoked or limited, the IRS said.

“IRS looks at various factors, including taxpayer noncompliance in the past and taxpayer failure to cooperate with the IRS” when opting to revoke a passport, according to La Torre Jeker.
The State Department can limit the passport’s use only to return travel to the U.S., thereby preventing the person “from being trapped in limbo” if outside the country, she said.
The IRS sends taxpayers Letter 6152 before revocation, asking them to call the IRS within 30 days in order to resolve their account and avoid passport cancellation, she added.
Still, sometimes passport denial catches debtors by surprise when they travel, said Whalen at Advanced Tax Solutions.
For example, the IRS may have the wrong address on file — especially if a taxpayer has moved — and mail notices to the wrong place, Whalen said.
“A lot of times, they don’t know they have a balance due until they … show up at the airport,” he said. More

It appears more investors are eyeing dividend stocks ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision in September.
Paul Baiocchi of SS&C ALPS Advisors thinks it is a sound strategy because he sees the Fed easing rates.

“Investors are moving back toward dividends out of money markets, out of fixed income, but also importantly toward leveraged companies that might be rewarded by a declining interest rate environment,” the chief ETF strategist told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week.
ALPS is the issuer of several dividend exchange-traded funds including the ALPS O’Shares U.S. Quality Dividend ETF (OUSA) and its counterpart, the ALPS O’Shares U.S. Small-Cap Quality Dividend ETF (OUSM).
Relative to the S&P 500, both dividend ETFs are overweight health care, financials and industrials, according to Baiocchi. The ETFs exclude energy, real estate and materials. He refers to the groups as three of the most unstable sectors in the market.
“Not only do you have price volatility, but you have fundamental volatility in those sectors,” Baiocchi said.
He explains this volatility would undermine the goal of the OUSA and OUSM, which is to provide drawdown avoidance.

“You’re looking for dividends as part of the methodology, but you’re looking at dividends that are durable, dividends that have been growing, that are well supported by fundamentals,” Baiocchi said.
Mike Akins, ETF Action’s founding partner, views OUSA and OUSM as defensive strategies because the stocks generally have clean balance sheets.
He also notes  the dividend category in ETFs has been surging in popularity.
“I don’t have the crystal ball that explains why dividends are so in vogue,” Akins said. “I think people look at it as if you’re paying a dividend, and you have for years, there is a sense to viability to that company’s balance sheet.”

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