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First Trust Exchange-Traded Fund VI First Trust S&P International Dividend Aristocrats ETF
It is an exchange-traded fund that holds a basket of high-dividend stocks from developed and emerging markets outside the United States.
This is a fund, not a company that makes or sells anything. It is a single exchange-traded fund — a basket of stocks you can buy and sell like a share — run under the First Trust umbrella and listed on NASDAQ under the ticker FID. When you buy it, you are buying a small slice of up to 100 non-U.S. companies that pay meaningful dividends, all in one trade.
The idea behind it is simple. Lots of investors want income from stocks, and they want it from outside the United States so their money isn't all tied to one economy. The fund tracks an index that screens for companies in developed and emerging markets, excluding America, that have a record of paying and raising dividends — the kind of steady, shareholder-friendly businesses the "dividend aristocrat" label is meant to capture. You get instant diversification across countries and sectors without picking individual stocks yourself. The fund makes money for its issuer the way most ETFs do: it charges a small annual fee, taken quietly out of the fund's assets, and that's how First Trust gets paid. Investors pay that fee in exchange for the convenience of one ticker doing the work of dozens of foreign stock picks. The trade-off is that you own whatever the index owns, for better or worse, and the fund's value rises and falls with those foreign markets and currencies.
Dividend funds like this one appeal to people who want a regular income stream and are willing to accept the ups and downs of international stocks to get it. The catch is real, though: high-dividend stocks can lag when growth stocks are running hot, foreign markets can stumble, and currency swings can quietly eat into returns. It is a simple, low-drama way to own a slice of income-producing companies around the world — as long as you remember that "steady dividend" never means "steady price."
Saved answer · last researched 14 Nov 2026