SCHD Sector Allocation Drift: From 2016 to 2025

Introduction

This streamgraph visualizes how sector allocations changed over time, showing each sector's share of the portfolio at the end of every year. Rather than focusing on performance, it highlights how the portfolio's composition evolved across different market sectors. By following the changing width of each stream, investors can quickly identify which sectors became more prominent, which declined, and when leadership shifted during the period.

Key insights

• Leadership Shift from Financials to Energy

  Financials began as the portfolio's largest sector at 24.2% in 2016 but finished at 17.1% in 2026, a decline of 7.1 percentage points. Over the same period, Energy expanded from 5.7% to 19.9%, an increase of 14.2 percentage points, becoming the largest sector by the end of the timeline.

• Defensive Sectors Gained Greater Weight

  Consumer Staples increased from 11.7% to 18.5% (+6.8 pp), while Health Care rose from 10.3% to 16.2% (+5.9 pp). Both sectors steadily represented a larger share of the portfolio by the end of the period, making them two of the most prominent allocations alongside Energy.

• Temporary Technology Surge

  Information Technology climbed from 6.7% in 2016 to a peak of 26.6% in 2020 before declining to 8.9% in 2026. The visualization highlights that sector weights can experience significant intermediate shifts even when long-term start and end allocations appear relatively close.

• Several Sectors Lost Representation

  Materials declined from 7.7% to 0.0%, the largest overall decrease at 7.7 percentage points. Consumer Discretionary also fell from 11.9% to 4.8% (-7.1 pp), while Utilities decreased from 3.4% to 0.0% (-3.4 pp), illustrating how some sectors gradually became a much smaller portion of the portfolio over time.

Methodology

The visualization displays each sector's year-end portfolio weight as a percentage of the overall portfolio for every year shown. Stream width represents sector allocation rather than investment performance or returns. Comparing the beginning and ending allocations reveals long-term composition changes, while the changing stream widths highlight periods of increasing or decreasing sector exposure.