Our 2022 Dow Dogs. Plus, their broader-based ETF cousin, SDOG. Both sets of dogs are largely dividend based stock strategies.
Image of Jackson Bark, Chicago. By “Jackson Bark,” via Wikipedia entry of the same name, CC 4.0 license. WASHINGTON – Thank heaven. As an essentially miserable 2021 slips into history behind us, we can now take a reasonable look at 2022. For starters, let’s take a look at our more or less final 2022 Dow Dogs listing of stocks. And while we’re at it, we should also give a brief nod to it broader-based ETF cousin, SDOG. (More on this one a bit later.) Both are largely dividend based stock strategies. The kind of conservative stock strategies often worth holding in an uncertain year, like 2022. Despite its health and governmental travails,2021 generally proved a decent investment year for investors. Or at least for those investors who didn’t panic out of their holdings during a couple of massive selling tsunamis that at least served to drive likely record sales of Maalox. Mr Market actually did quite well last year. Evidence? Despite a fairly relentless Q4 selloff in the previously hot tech sector, the S&P 500, at least gained upwards of 27% YoY. At least according to most analysts. But what proved puzzling to some extent was why this bizarre 2021 rally even took place. The investment climate last year couldn’t have been worse.2021 started out with what history will judge as the worst excuse for a national revolution in recorded history. (Read more about this here.) Short answer to Question #1: No. Or, well, probably not. The reason why is simple.2021’s continuation of Mr Market’s pre-Covid rally mode was simply a final extension to the rational exuberance that President Trump’s economic policies launched. And that’s the peg we need to get back to the main topics of this column: the Dow Dogs and, better yet, All Dogs, the 2022 Edition. Both are dividend based stock strategies. Short Answer to Question #2: Maybe. The Dow Dogs – or more correctly, the “Dogs of the Dow Strategy” – likely existed before you and I were born. The theory here is quite simple. Just buy up the top 10 highest dividend-paying stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average of America’s 30 highest dividend-paying stocks. Hold them for a year. And sell them for fun and profit. While spending an entire year collecting those abnormally-high dividend paying stocks. Well, that’s the theory, anyway. Problem is, as I learned while studying to pass my NYSE and NASDAQ exams years ago to qualify as an actual stock broker, nothing in the stock market is guaranteed.
