Regular dividend payments should NOT be misunderstood as a stellar performance by the fund.
For example,
a bond-investing fund may pay monthly dividends because it receives monthly interest on its interest-bearing holdings and merely transfers the income from the interest fully or partially to the fund's investors.
A stock-investing fund pays dividends from the earnings received from the many stocks held in its portfolio or by selling a certain share of stocks and distributing capital gains.
Companies may still make dividend payments even when they don’t make suitable profits to maintain their established track record of distributions.