Yeah your spot on with the timing observation. And the franking...

Yeah your spot on with the timing observation. And the franking credits are certainly a big plus which I probably wasn't taking into account enough. They can be very valuable particularly if you have an SMSF or any other situation where you are able to secure a cash refund (at least for the moment!). And that is a big tick in their box as compared to an ETF.

I think you'll be more than fine if you continue to hold those ARG shares as we do know that NTA will slowly but surely edge up and you'll be able to get a nice dividend in the meantime and sleep easy at night with ARG being so conservative. Not sure about ARG but I know that AFIC maintained their dividends right through the financial crisis (the frustrating "flipside" of that has been I feel they have been far too conservative in increasing their dividend ever since at a time that the market has been flying and thus greatly increased the income coming into AFIC. Mind you if I was a retiree I am sure I would be more concerned with my dividend income never reducing than increasing fast so its all about your investment priorities.

Don't get me wrong I'm actually a fan of both AFIC and ARG and think they are probably some of the least risky investments on the market but I do feel they might need a little "tweak" of their strategy to remain relevant as many of their "selling points" are not currently being backed up by investment performance.