I’ve long admired the popular Pacer U.S. Cash Cows exchange-traded fund (COWZ). Less well known is that Pacer employs its free cash flow and dividend strategy overseas. In a year when U.S. stocks lag European stocks, Latin American stocks, most Asian stocks and our own expectations, Pacer Developed Markets International Cash Cows 100 (ICOW) and Pacer Global Cash Cows Dividend (GCOW) are up 17% and 13%, respectively. (The first is 99% non-U.S. and the second is 75% foreign, hence the difference. “Global” funds include U.S. issues; “international” ones do not.)
More to the point, the international ETF yields 4.4% and the global option yields 3.9%, twin reminders that foreign companies also bundle pallets of cash for their shareholders. And with the dollar off in 2025, dividends in euros or yen or Swiss francs or Polish zlotys or Malaysian ringgit mean a U.S. fund can pass along a few extra bucks on the currency exchange. Hence a bunch of international ETFs that emphasize dividends are doing even better in 2025 than the Cows.
