Last month 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 |
$39.71 | 25.0818 | $39.99 | $1,003.02 | 0.7% |
|
Exelon |
$41.82 | 23.818 | $43.11 | $1,026.79 | 3.1% |
|
National Grid |
$48.90 | 20.3693 | $48.33 | $984.45 | (1.2%) |
|
Philip Morris International |
$68.49 | 14.5429 | $66.83 | $971.90 | (2.4%) |
|
Annaly Capital |
$18.24 | 55 | $17.79 | $978.45 | (2.5%) |
|
Frontier Communications |
$7.88 | 126.4243 | $7.58 | $958.30 | (3.8%) |
|
Plum Creek Timber |
$38.42 | 26 | $40.20 | $1,045.20 | 4.6% |
|
Brookfield Infrastructure Partners |
$26.12 | 38.2825 | $25.61 | $980.41 | (2%) |
|
Vodafone |
$26.52 | 37.5566 | $25.45 | $955.82 | (4%) |
|
Seaspan |
$14.61 | 69 | $14.41 | $994.29 | (1.4%) |
| Cash | $9.31 | $9.31 | |||
| Dividends receivable | $35.75 | $35.75 | |||
| Total Portfolio | $9,943.69 | (0.4%) | |||
| Investment in SPY | 1% | ||||
| Relative performance | (0.6%) |
Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.
The portfolio has underperformed the S&P 500 in its first few weeks, although it was net positive just yesterday. I'm not particularly concerned about short-term fluctuations, though. This dividend portfolio is designed to do better when the market is performing poorly, and there's a good chance we'll see that theory put to the test later this year, especially if Congress enacts any serious austerity measures. In the meantime, we'll cash our dividend checks and wait for an opportunity to reinvest those proceeds.
Dividends and earnings announcements
Although we bought into many of these stocks (Southern, Exelon, Frontier, Brookfield) a bit late to get the June dividends, often it's better to purchase dividend stocks when they're not approaching the ex-dividend date. Nevertheless, we have a few bits of dividend news:
- Philip Morris paid out $0.64 per share on July 11, to holders of record as of June 21.
- Annaly is set to pay out a dividend of $0.65 per share on July 28, for holders as of June 28.
- Philip Morris reports earnings on Thursday.
It's a slow week for earnings, but next week will ramp up, as Plum Creek, Southern, and Exelon all reveal their latest quarters.
Portfolio news
Last week, Annaly announced that it was raising more money via a secondary offering. It's expecting to raise around $2.1 billion before expenses. Shares slumped on the offering, which was priced at $17.70. Annaly has now fallen 4% from its recent high of $18.53, just before the announcement.
The company said that it was using the new capital to purchase mortgage-backed securities, a sign that the company still sees opportunities to effectively deploy cash. The mortgage REIT sector has been especially hot recently, with numerous companies raising capital or conducting IPOs.
Foolish bottom line
I've been a fan of big dividends for a while, and I think the power of such dividends will help this portfolio outperform the market over time. As I promised in the original article, I'll be holding these stocks for at least a year, and I'll continue to track the portfolio and its companies over the course of the year.
If you like dividends, consider the 10 tickers above, along with the 13 names from a free report from Motley Fool's expert analysts: 13 High-Yielding Stocks to Buy Today. Hundreds of thousands have requested access to this report, and you can download it at no cost right now. To get instant access to the names of these 13 high yielders, simply click here -- it's free.
