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12

This High-Yield Portfolio Will Beat the Market

Forty-nine weeks ago, I invested my cold, hard cash into 10 high-yield dividend stocks I believe will beat the market. Let's see the results so far:

Company

Average Cost

Shares

Recent Price

Total Value

Return

Altria (NYSE: MO  ) $24.86 40 $28.83 $1,153.10 15.96%
Philip Morris (NYSE: PM  ) $61.83 17 $76.83 $1,306.11 23.30%
National Grid $45.63 22 $48.81 $1,073.82 6.97%
Annaly Capital Management (NYSE: NLY  ) $17.55 57 $16.89 $962.45 (3.79%)
Frontier Communications (NYSE: FTR  ) $8.71 149 $4.68 $697.62 (46.25%)
Southern Co. $37.87 26 $45.29 $1,177.65 19.60%
France Telecom $22.23 45 $15.19 $683.55 (31.67%)
Vodafone Group (NYSE: VOD  ) $28.69 38 $27.48 $1,044.24 (4.22%)
Eli Lilly $34.48 29 $39.94 $1,158.12 15.82%
Bristol-Myers Squibb $25.37 39 $32.72 $1,275.89 28.95%
Cash   128.06   128.06 0%
Dividends Receivable   32.49   32.49 0%
Total Portfolio       $10,693.08 6.93%
Investment in SPY         2.60%
Return vs. SPY         +4.33

Source: S&P Capital IQ, as of Jan 26.

Since my last report, the SPDR S&P 500 rose 2.6%. Our portfolio rose less than the market, with our outperformance moving from beating the market by 4.74 percentage points to a 4.33-point advantage. While outperformance is always good, it should be taken with a grain of salt. We're investing for the long term, and it's only been 11 months.

Movers and shakers
Our largest mover the past week was Frontier Communications, which fell 3.35%. Frontier has been falling with the telecom sector as Verizon and AT&T both reported disappointing earnings.

Money!
There are four upcoming dividends for the portfolio:

  • Annaly Capital Management will pay a $0.57 dividend today. The ex-dividend date was Dec. 26.
  • Vodafone will pay a dividend of 0.705 pence (roughly $1.12, not included in Dividends Receivable as exchange rate won't be determined until close of market today) on Feb. 3. The ex-dividend date was Nov. 16.
  • Southern Co. will pay a $0.4725 dividend on March 6. The ex-dividend date is Feb. 2.
  • Eli Lilly will pay a dividend of $0.49 on March 9. The ex-dividend date is Feb. 13.

Reinvestment
With the dividends from Annaly and Vodafone, by Feb. 3 we will have just over $200 in cash in our portfolio. As I said last week, I'm partial to investing in Annaly, Vodafone, France Telecom, or Philip Morris.

There was big news yesterday when the Fed announced it will keep low interest rates until late 2014, extending by a year its promise to keep low rates. That's great news for Annaly, which makes money by borrowing money at low rates to invest in mortgage-backed securities. The news from the Fed gives Annaly a leg up on our other options to invest in; however, we will continue to evaluate options as we wait to collect our dividends from Annaly and Vodafone.  

My Foolish bottom line
I'm highly confident in this portfolio's ability to crush the market over the next decade, and that's why I put $10,000 of my personal cash into these stocks. My strategy is simple. I'm buying strong companies with outsized dividends, reinvesting those dividends, and holding them for the long run. Over the coming year, I'll track my performance, update you on when I'm going to reinvest all my dividends, and keep you abreast of news affecting these companies.

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Dan Dzombak can be found on his Facebook page. Click here and like my Facebook page to follow my investing articles. He owns shares of Altria, Philip Morris, National Grid, Annaly Capital, Frontier, Southern Co., France Telecom, Vodafone, Eli Lilly, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

The Motley Fool owns shares of Altria Group, Philip Morris International, and Annaly Capital Management. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Southern, France Telecom, Philip Morris International, Vodafone Group, and National Grid. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.


Comments from our Foolish Readers

Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment Report this Comment icon found on every comment.

  • Report this Comment On January 26, 2012, at 3:43 PM, pryan37bb wrote:

    Anyone know what was up with today's drop in FTR? All I know is that it mostly started at about noon, and I haven't heard any news that'd explain a 5% drop

  • Report this Comment On January 26, 2012, at 5:10 PM, 1caflash wrote:

    Read The Wall Street Journal's article about S&P's Downgrade, which hit media sources January 26, 2012..

  • Report this Comment On January 26, 2012, at 5:13 PM, divnut wrote:

    I wish I had stayed away from it back in

    Dec. 2011 :-( Got a bit greedy with the divy and I'm taking a bath on paper. Someone did mention a downgrade which would certainly cause the 5.8% drop today. Oh well, let's hope it heads back up soon. Good luck to all.

  • Report this Comment On January 26, 2012, at 5:38 PM, 1caflash wrote:

    Are You into Poetry? This poster sold Frontier late last year, but woe is me with Donnelley. RRD is in my DRIP. Dan, 'Why Do You Want To Pay Taxes to France?" "What Do You See In FTR That Is So Great?" FTR was Discouraging Business in Western States during 2011 by hiking rates abnormally. That does not sound like good management. You didn't ask me, but consider a Stock with Growth Potential AND Yield like Hickory Tech. Perhaps you're a Die-Hard Frontier fan, similar to me with RRD. Use Limit Orders for HTCO if You Like my suggestion.

  • Report this Comment On January 26, 2012, at 5:46 PM, AlanLee49 wrote:
  • Report this Comment On January 26, 2012, at 10:21 PM, divnut wrote:

    Good luck to all. I'm going to bite the bullet and

    get out. I'll take my losses and reinvest in a

    company that's not in free fall mode. IMO, FTR is far from bottoming out. Again, good luck to all FTR longs.

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Related Tickers

5/24/2012 4:01 PM
PM $85.34 Up +1.01 +1.20%
Philip Morris Inte… CAPS Rating: *****
NLY $16.60 Up +0.07 +0.42%
Annaly Capital Man… CAPS Rating: ****
MO $32.26 Up +0.54 +1.70%
Altria Group, Inc. CAPS Rating: *****

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