Dogs of the Dow

Today I funded my IRA and employed the the Dogs of the Dow. This is something that I had done with regularity in the 1990's with success, but got away from it the last few years for various reasons. The thesis goes like this: The Dow stocks represent a varied cross-section of the stock market and the "Dogs" are those members who are most undervalued using yield for valuation.

Instructions: Take the top five yielding stocks, drop the top yielder since it may have some fundamental problem, then invest one-fourth allocation into each of the next 4 in rank. The ranks will change almost daily and the picks should be held for one year. One variation is to use only those stocks selling below $30 per share, called the "small dogs", with the thought that stocks with higher share price are not as desirable. Since the current four doggish stocks are all near $30, I didn't use this screen.

Therefore, I put one-fourth allocation into each of Verizon (VZ), Dupont (DD), Kraft (KFT) and Merck (MRK), with an average yield of just under 5% which is better than long term Treasurys. In my experience one or two will largely outperform the others, and since it's completely unpredictable a buy-and-hold discipline must be respected.

One unintended bonus: I went long on these four names at 2:00 pm which inadvertently pegged the day's bottom; it's always good when a long term holding gets a 1% gain in the first two hours you hold it. There, now I jinxed the strategy.