Every investment held in an InvestSMART account generates income. InvestSMART does not invest in non cash producing assets. The ETFs selected by the InvestSMART Investment Committee pay quarterly dividends with the exception of the cash ETF which pays monthly.
These dividends come into your account as cash and can either be paid out to you or be used to buy more investments and maintain the balance of your portfolio. It is common for retirees with InvestSMART to use the Income Sweep feature. Every month we bundle up any dividends paid and transfer them out to your nominated bank account. As the ETFs predominantly pay quarterly distributions some months will have more income than others.
To smooth this out, it is common for investors to make use of our adhoc withdrawal feature where you can request any amount whenever you wish, or have a regular withdrawal plan turned on where you nominate a set dollar amount that is drawn from your account each month.