In June 2011, I invested my money equally in a selection of 10 high-yield dividend stocks. With a year of success behind me, earlier this month, I added even more money to the portfolio. These 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 | Yield | Total Value | Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southern | $39.71 | 25.0818 | 4.1% | $1,196.40 | 20.1% |
| Exelon | $41.36 | 23.818 | 5.4% | $1,126.21 | (5.5%) |
| National Grid | $48.90 | 20.3693 | 5.7% | $1,070.61 | 7.5% |
| Philip Morris International | $68.49 | 14.5429 | 3.4% | $1,302.32 | 30.7% |
| Annaly Capital | $17.92 | 65.5 | 12.9% | $1,111.54 | (5.3%) |
| Frontier Communications | $7.88 | 126.4243 | 10.3% | $470.30 | (52.8%) |
| Plum Creek Timber | $38.42 | 26 | 4.1% | $1,051.96 | 5.3% |
| Brookfield Infrastructure Partners | $26.12 | 38.2825 | 4.5% | $1,287.06 | 28.7% |
| Vodafone | $26.52 | 37.5566 | 5% | $1,083.32 | 8.8% |
| Seaspan | $14.90 | 76 | 6.5% | $1,166.60 | 3% |
| AT&T | $35.20 | 28.4 | 4.9% | $1,007.63 | 0.8% |
| Retail Opportunity Investments | $12.20 | 81.95 | 4.2% | $1,014.54 | 1.5% |
| Annaly Preferred C | $25.92 | 38.5 | 7.3% | $1,005.24 | 0.7% |
| Cash | $99.31 | ||||
| Dividends Receivable | $115.23 | ||||
| Original Investment | $12,983.97 | ||||
| Total Portfolio | $14,108.26 | 8.7% | |||
| Investment in SPY (including dividends) | 7.8% | ||||
| Relative Performance (percentage points) | 0.9 |
Source: S&P Capital IQ.
Our portfolio gained again this week, moving from 8% last week to 8.7% this week. But we lost ground on the S&P, which moved up a screaming 3.3%. We're still outperforming by 0.9 percentage points, but up-days tend to do better for the S&P than our portfolio. On the other hand, we do better on down-days or weeks. Our blended yield remains at 5.8%.
It looks like Vodafone
Fellow Fool Brenton Flynn discusses three reasons Frontier
Fellow Fool Dan Caplinger surveys the prospects for Southern
Fool Keith Speights digs deep into the industry, too, and says that lower fuel costs may not be the boon for Southern that they seem. He also notes that Exelon
Dividends and other announcements
We're at the start of earnings season, and we have little dividend news for the moment.
Earnings news:
- Philip Morris
(NYSE: PM)
Dividend news:
- National Grid went ex-dividend on May 30 and pays out $2.017 per share on Aug. 15.
- Vodafone went ex-dividend on June 6 and pays out $1.015 per share on Aug. 1.
- Annaly went ex-dividend on June 27 and pays out $0.55 per share on July 26.
All of that, of course, means more money coming into our pockets.
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 up more shares.
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're craving more dividend payers, I invite you to read the free report from the Motley Fool titled "3 American Companies Set to Dominate the World." Today I invite you to download it at no cost to you. To get instant access to the names of these dominant dividend stocks, simply click here -- it's free.
