XEI.TO DRIP & Distribution Calculator

What is XEI.TO?

iShares S&P/TSX Composite High Dividend Index ETF, launched April 12, 2011.

XEI.TO — iShares S&P/TSX Composite High Dividend Index ETF

XEI is a plain, no-derivatives Canadian dividend fund — no covered calls, no borrowed money. It holds 75 stocks pulled from the S&P/TSX Composite and ranked by dividend, with two built-in guardrails: no single stock can be more than 5% of the fund, and no sector can be more than 30%. That's a deliberate design choice to avoid the fund turning into "just the banks" or "just energy" the way a lot of dividend funds do.

Even with those caps, it still leans hard into two sectors — financials (about 31%) and energy (about 31%) together make up roughly two-thirds of the fund, with utilities a distant third at around 13%. The top 10 holdings only add up to about 47%, though, which is noticeably more spread out than most of the funds already covered on this site — that per-stock cap is doing real work.

On fees: the MER is 0.22% — mid-pack for this type of fund, not the cheapest but far from expensive.

It pays monthly, currently around $0.11/unit, working out to a yield in the low-to-mid 3% range at today's price (around $40). Performance has been solid recently (up about 26% in 2025), but its own official numbers show real down years too: it dropped in 2 of the last 10 calendar years, including a rough 2018 (-10.8%) and a brutal 3-month stretch ending March 2020 where a $1,000 investment would have fallen to $726. Over the past 10 years it's compounded at about 12.3% a year — a genuinely long track record for a dividend ETF, and one that includes a real crash inside it, not just a smooth upward line.

Not sure how a fund like this generates its payout? See Covered-Call ETFs Explained.

Risk: Medium risk

What's the actual risk rating?

BlackRock's own ETF Facts document rates XEI "Medium" risk. That lines up well with how it's actually followed — analysts tracked on Stockchase have been strongly positive (7 buy calls to 1 sell over the past year, including a recent Top Pick call), generally framed around its high monthly income and its usefulness inside a registered account like an RRSP. There's no real gap here between the label and the sentiment — no leverage, no options overlay, so the main risk is simply what it always is with this kind of fund: it moves with Canadian banks and energy, and it can have a genuinely bad quarter, as 2020 showed.

Plain-English bottom line: A broad, well-diversified-for-its-category dividend fund with a long track record and no leverage or options overlay — still tied closely to how Canadian banks and energy are doing, which is what the "Medium" rating reflects.

Price trend: Growing

A high yield alone doesn't say whether a fund's price is holding up or quietly being eaten away to help fund the payout — this looks at that separately, using the fund's real price history, not a prediction. Declining doesn't mean the fund is a bad choice; some funds are built to pay out more than they grow, on purpose. It just means part of what you're receiving may be a return of your own money rather than new income.

Est. +6.5%/yr price growth since inception (SI total return 9.85%/yr annualized, ~321% cumulative, over ~15.3 yrs since Apr 2011 vs. current yield ~3.37%)

This page is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. It does not account for taxes, fees, or changes in distribution rates, and past distributions are not a guarantee of future payments. Consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.

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