The Globe and Mail Mary Gooderham Published April 13, 2021 Bookmark For income-seeking investors, global-dividend ETFs promise broad diversification, low volatility and above-average yields. They also come with somewhat higher costs and a few tax drawbacks for Canadians, making them less suitable in some portfolios. “Most people buying these want a higher level of income than they get from a broader index,” says Alan Fustey, a Winnipeg-based portfolio manager at Adaptive ETF, a division of Bellwether Investment Management Inc. “And they also want a high degree of sustainability on that income.” In terms of total returns, however, some of these ETFs “lagged the market pretty badly last year,” Mr. Fustey notes, largely because they focus on dividend-heavy sectors such as utilities and financials and are underweight in the technology, communications and lower-quality small-cap companies that outperformed.