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The World's Best Dividend Portfolio

In June, I invested my money equally in a selection of 10 high-yield dividend stocks. Those names offer triple the yield of the average S&P 500 stock. You can read all the details here. Now let's check out the results so far.

Company

Cost Basis

Shares

Recent Price

Total Value

Return

Southern (NYSE: SO  ) $39.71 25.0818 $42.11 $1,056.19 6.0%
Exelon (NYSE: EXC  ) $41.82 23.818 $42.35 $1,008.69 1.3%
National Grid (NYSE: NGG  ) $48.90 20.3693 $48.74 $992.80 (0.3%)
Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM  ) $68.49 14.5429 $64.96 $944.71 (5.2%)
Annaly Capital (NYSE: NLY  ) $18.24 55 $17.56 $965.80 (3.7%)
Frontier Communications (NYSE: FTR  ) $7.88 126.4243 $6.27 $792.68 (20.4%)
Plum Creek Timber (NYSE: PCL  ) $38.42 26 $34.80 $904.80 (9.4%)
Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (NYSE: BIP  ) $26.12 38.2825 $25.50 $976.20 (2.4%)
Vodafone (Nasdaq: VOD  ) $26.52 37.5566 $24.58 $923.14 (7.3%)
Seaspan (NYSE: SSW  ) $14.61 69 $12.13 $836.97 (17.0%)
Cash  

$93.27

 

$93.27

 
Dividends Receivable  

$37.10

 

$37.10

 
Total Portfolio       $9,532.36 (4.5%)
Investment in SPY         (12.7%)
Relative Performance         8.2%

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.

The portfolio has moved back into negative territory, dropping sharply from last week's break into positive territory. The market hit everything hard, but our portfolio still outperformed the overall market, with outperformance rising by 2 percentage points from last week. Eight of our 10 picks are still beating the S&P. That performance is also a reminder of the stability of dividend payers over time -- good downside protection and continued income but also less upside volatility.

I'm not particularly concerned about short-term fluctuations, though. In the meantime, we'll cash our dividend checks and wait for an opportunity to reinvest those proceeds. In particular, Frontier is bringing the average return down, meaning the stock could be an attractive place to add reinvested dividends. At today's price, the stock is yielding 12%. Which stock do you think looks the most attractive now?

Dividends and earnings announcements
We're moving out of dividend season, and we have a few bits of news:

  • Brookfield Infrastructure went ex-dividend on Aug. 29, with a payday of $0.35 a share on Sept. 29.
  • Frontier went ex-dividend on Sept. 7 and pays out $0.1875 cents per share on Sept. 29.
  • Philip Morris goes ex-div on Sept. 27 and pays out its newly raised dividend of $0.77 on Oct. 11.
  • And everyone's favorite dividend play, Annaly, goes ex-div on Sept. 28 and pays its dividend of $0.60 on Oct. 27.

It's fun to sit back and get paid, and with the market volatility, we might have a good chance to reinvest those dividends at good prices. Europe continues to be an absolute mess, and continued bad news will likely have stocks plunging again, and if they do, I'll be inclined to pick more shares up.

Foolish bottom line
I've been a fan of big dividends for a while, and I think this portfolio will outperform the market over time through the power of dividends. As I promised in the original article, I'll be holding these stocks for at least a year and will continue to track the portfolio over the course of the year, including news on these companies.

If you like dividends, consider the 10 tickers above along with the 13 names from a free report from Motley Fool's expert analysts called "13 High-Yielding Stocks to Buy Today." Hundreds of thousands have requested access to this report, and today I invite you to download it at no cost to you. To get instant access to the names of these 13 high yielders, simply click here -- it's free.

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Jim Royal, Ph.D., owns shares of every company mentioned here. The Motley Fool owns shares of Brookfield Infrastructure, Seaspan, Annaly, and Philip Morris. The Fool owns shares of and has written puts on Plum Creek. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of National Grid, Philip Morris, Southern, Brookfield Infrastructure, Vodafone, and Exelon; creating a covered strangle position in Exelon; and creating a write covered straddle position in Seaspan. 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 September 23, 2011, at 4:08 PM, dontwin wrote:

    Can't believe SeaDrill (SDRL) isn;t included in your list!

  • Report this Comment On September 23, 2011, at 4:56 PM, FStan wrote:

    NGG, FTR, and PCL are all paying out significantly more in dividends than they have cash flow. SO, NLY, and SSW all are close after paying taxes. EXC earnings dropped 29% this year. I would reinvest dividends in PM, BIP, and VOD.

    I'm just sayin...

  • Report this Comment On September 23, 2011, at 5:20 PM, dbtheonly wrote:

    dontwin,

    The list was drawn up about 8 months ago when Dr. Royal set the rules of the exercise. He promised to hold the stocks for a year while we, playing along at home, get to get in or out as we choose.

    He's mentioned that we will continue the game for a while & so I'm expecting a re-adjustment in about 4 months. SDRL may make it then.

    Dr. Royal,

    I make it a point to look for the article every Friday. Thanks. This is fun.

  • Report this Comment On September 23, 2011, at 9:01 PM, karlm1 wrote:

    Are you advocating having your dividends be paid in cash and then investing them where you feel they will do best instead of having a drip portfolio?

  • Report this Comment On September 24, 2011, at 12:45 AM, skypilot2005 wrote:

    Great "series" Jim. I wasn't aware of it. I am going to follow, now.

    Sky pilot

  • Report this Comment On September 24, 2011, at 2:06 AM, easyavenue wrote:

    FSTAN,

    NLY is required to pay out all of its... profits (fcf?) because dems da rules fo a REIT. So it is not unusual for them to pay out in such a manner. [At least that's the way I understand it. If I got this wrong, would someone please set me straight?] Thanks!

    Fool On!

  • Report this Comment On September 27, 2011, at 9:19 AM, EGTalbot wrote:

    easyavenue is right about NLY.

    Regarding Frontier being a good value, their forward P/E is over 20 and their payout is more than the combination of expected earnings both this year AND next year, and of course more than free cash flow as FStan notes also. If there is a single stock on the list to run screaming from, FTR would be it. Perhaps invest in the Dec $7 Put instead ;)

    That said, I own a number of the other names and I think it's a good list.

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Related Tickers

5/25/2012 4:05 PM
EXC $36.90 Up +0.04 +0.11%
Exelon Corp CAPS Rating: *****
FTR $3.50 Up +0.07 +2.04%
Frontier Communica… CAPS Rating: ***
NGG $53.65 Up +0.78 +1.48%
National Grid plc… CAPS Rating: *****
NLY $16.70 Up +0.10 +0.60%
Annaly Capital Man… CAPS Rating: ****
PCL $36.71 Down -0.31 -0.84%
Plum Creek Timber… CAPS Rating: ****
PM $85.38 Up +0.04 +0.05%
Philip Morris Inte… CAPS Rating: *****
SO $45.69 Up +0.09 +0.20%
Southern Company CAPS Rating: *****

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