Cambria Foreign Shareholder Yield ETF (FYLD) Covered Calls

The Cambria Foreign Shareholder Yield ETF (FYLD) is an actively managed fund that seeks to provide exposure to high-quality, foreign developed market companies. The fund utilizes a multi-factor quantitative strategy to select stocks with high "shareholder yield," which combines dividend payments, net share buybacks, and debt reduction. FYLD aims to identify undervalued international companies that are returning significant amounts of cash to shareholders.

You can sell covered calls on Cambria Foreign Shareholder Yield ETF to lower risk and earn monthly income. Born To Sell's covered call screener gives you customized search capabilities across all possible covered calls but here are a couple of examples for FYLD (prices last updated Thu 4:16 PM ET):

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The Cambria Foreign Shareholder Yield ETF (FYLD) is an innovative actively managed vehicle designed to capture the total cash return profile of international companies. While traditional "income" funds focus solely on dividend yield, FYLD utilizes Cambria’s proprietary "Shareholder Yield" methodology. This approach evaluates companies based on three distinct pillars: cash dividends, net share buybacks (which reduce share count and increase ownership stakes), and net debt reduction (which strengthens the balance sheet). By focusing on this triad, the fund attempts to identify firms that are more fundamentally sound than those simply chasing high dividend payouts.

The fund’s investment universe consists of companies in developed markets outside of the United States. Cambria’s quantitative model screens approximately 3,000 stocks, ranking them by their composite shareholder yield score and various valuation metrics like enterprise value to EBITDA. The portfolio is typically composed of the top 100 stocks that meet these rigorous cash-flow and valuation criteria, providing a value-tilted exposure to international equities that often trade at a discount to their U.S. counterparts.

Core Business and Products

The core "product" of FYLD is a diversified portfolio of approximately 100 foreign stocks across sectors such as Financials, Materials, Energy, and Industrials. The fund has significant geographic exposure to stable, developed economies including Canada, The United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia. Notable holdings often include global blue-chip firms known for disciplined capital allocation, such as Shell PLC, Stellantis, and various major international financial institutions.

Competitive Landscape

FYLD competes in the international value and dividend ETF space. While its options chain is less liquid than mega-cap broad market funds, it is a primary choice for factor-based investors. Key optionable competitors include:

1. Cambria Shareholder Yield ETF: The U.S.-focused sister fund and the flagship of the Cambria yield suite, often used as a benchmark for the shareholder yield factor.
2. Vanguard International High Dividend Yield ETF: A major broad-market competitor that focuses primarily on traditional dividend yields across international markets.
3. iShares International Select Dividend ETF: A liquid peer that targets high dividend-paying stocks in developed markets, representing a more traditional income approach.
4. iShares MSCI EAFE ETF: The primary broad-market benchmark for developed international equities, against which FYLD’s value tilt is measured.
5. Schwab Fundamental International Large Company ETF: A competitor that uses fundamental weighting (sales, cash flow, dividends) rather than market cap, similar in spirit to FYLD’s factor-based approach.

Strategic Outlook and Innovation

The strategic outlook for FYLD is supported by the widening valuation gap between U.S. and international equities. As global markets move toward a "value-conscious" environment, the emphasis on total shareholder return (dividends plus buybacks) becomes a critical differentiator. The fund is positioned to benefit from the trend of international companies—particularly in Europe and Japan—adopting more shareholder-friendly policies similar to those long-established in the United States.

Innovation at FYLD lies in its "holistic" definition of yield. By including debt reduction in its quantitative screen, Cambria addresses a common pitfall of dividend investing: companies that borrow money to sustain a dividend they cannot afford. This "self-correcting" fundamental screen ensures that the fund remains invested in companies with genuine free cash flow. For investors, FYLD provides a systematic, professional-grade value strategy in an easy-to-trade ETF format, offering a diversified alternative to traditional cap-weighted international indexing.

Want more examples? FYC Covered Calls | FYT Covered Calls