Why does VOO pay less dividends than SPY?

Question

I understand that the ETFs SPY and VOO were created at different times and that their payout dates are different and due to that, it is possible that the dividends may vary a little bit.

In my logic though, over time, they should have the exact same amout of dividends (maybe with fees deducted) but what VOO doesn't pay out this quarter, it should be paying out next.

As VOO's fees are smaller than SPY, the dividend should even be higher than SPYs. But the dividend history of the two ETFs shows another picture (VOO's are always smaller by a significant amount):

SPY's Dividend History

VOO's Dividend History

Can somebody explain this?

Answer 1

Do you see how VOO and SPY don't have the same price?

Say you and I both start an S&P index ETF. For sake of easy paperwork, and to discourage small customers, you sell shares at a starting value of $10,000. But, I like the little guy and start at $10.

Your dividends per share will be 1000 times mine. But, if my customer hold 1000 shares, and you have a customer with 1, they should see identical dividend payments.

The simpler answer? SPY looks like it's 1/10 of the S&P index, VOO wasn't priced that way. Consider, it opened on 9/9/2010 at 102.50 VS SPY at 111.65.

This (way VOO is priced) is typical of mutual funds. Even index funds are usually started at a $10 price, and while growing with the index, it's up to the buyer to use some math if we wish to think of our holding as xx number of S&P units.

In fact, that's how I track the value of one of my daughter's college funds, as "14.44269 * S&P". And I update the multiplier every quarter or so, to account for deposits and reinvested dividends.