Investors' continued pursuit of income in this low-bond interest rate environment has led them to higher yielding stocks. Partial evidence of this can be found in the total return of the Dogs of the Dow basket of stocks this year.
As noted in earlier posts, the Dogs of the Dow strategy is one where investors select the ten stocks that have the highest dividend yield from the stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Index after the close of business on the last trading day of the year.
Once the ten stocks are determined, an investor invests an equal dollar amount in each of the ten stocks and holds them for the entire next year.
The average YTD total return through July 1, 2016 of the ten 2016 Dogs of the Dow equals 15.4%. This compares to the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE:DIA) and SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) returns of 4.4% and 4.0%, respectively.
The top performing Dow Dog this year is Verizon (NYSE:VZ), returning 24.5%. Of course, it was also the highest yielding Dow Dog at the beginning of 2016.
Below is a table containing various metrics on the 2016 Dogs of the Dow:
A full list of the Dow stocks with return and yield data can be found at Dogs of the Dow.