An investing strategy that consists of buying the 10 DJIA stocks with the highest dividend yield at the beginning of the year. The strategy was formulated in 1972 and has proven to be successful. In fact, as Dog of the Dow investors readjust their portfolios each year, it places pressure on the stocks involved. The Dogs of the Dow is an investment strategy popularized by Michael O’Higgins, in 1991 which proposes that an investor annually select for investment the ten Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks whose dividend is the highest fraction of their price.
Proponents of the Dogs of the Dow strategy argue that blue chip companies do not alter their dividend to reflect trading conditions and, therefore, the dividend is a measure of the average worth of the company; the stock price, in contrast, fluctuates through the business cycle. This should mean that companies with a high yield, with high dividend relative to price, are near the bottom of their business cycle and are likely to see their stock price increase faster than low yield companies. Under this model, an investor annually reinvesting in high-yield companies should out-perform the overall market. The logic behind this is that a high dividend yield suggests both that the stock is oversold and that management believes in its companies prospects and is willing to back that up by paying out a relatively high dividend. Investors are thereby hoping to benefit from both above average stock price gains as well as a relatively high quarterly dividend. Of course, several assumptions are made in this argument. The first assumption is that the dividend price reflects the company size rather than the company business model. The second is that companies have a natural, repeating cycle in which good performances are predicted by bad ones.The portfolio should be adjusted at the beginning of each year to include the 10 highest yielding stocks.