Dividend-Based Strategies
Updated: September 2, 2006.
New Search Feature
I have added a new search feature at the bottom of this page. It includes an index and a site map.
Dividend-Based Strategies Overview
This is an overview of dividend-based strategies.
Dividend-Based Strategies
The TIPS-Dividend Approximation
Here are two posts that help us decide whether we should pursue a dividend-based strategy or a stock growth strategy during retirement.
The TIPS-Dividend Approximation
Dividend Growth Basics
Dividends are much more amenable to analysis and projection than prices and total return.
Dividend Growth Basics
Books
Be sure to read these book reviews. They include some useful hints about dividend investing.
David Dreman’s Blockbuster
Lowell Miller’s Single Best Investment
James O’Shaughnessy’s books
Mike sent me this link that has excerpts from the first three chapters of The Single Best Investment.
Excerpts from The Single Best Investment
Valuations and Dividend-Based Strategies
Valuations affect Dividend-Based Strategies. Everyone is aware that prices affect yields. They do more.
The change in the speculative return is larger than the change from higher dividend yields.
Valuations and Dividend-Based Strategies
Dividends and True Buy-and-Hold Investing
We are making excellent progress with the True Buy-and-Hold concept. Here are some applications for dividend-based strategies.
Dividends and True Buy-and-Hold Investing
Adding a Dividend-Only Extension
What happens if you live only on dividends during the first decade of your retirement? Answer: you extend your portfolio's lifetime by ten years.
Not so obvious: this is true even if your portfolio balance declines during the first decade.
Adding a Dividend-Only Extension
Adding a Dividend-Only Extension: Follow On
S&P500 Dividend Yields
Refusing to See: Dividends
I read recently that dividend yields have no power to predict stock returns. Absurd.
Here are my speculations as to how someone could reach such a conclusion.
Refusing to See: Dividends
Dividend Growth Projections
These are dividend growth projections for the S&P500 index.
Dividends are likely to grow by Year 10 if the earnings yield is 5% or more (i.e., P/E10<20).
Dividend Growth Projections
Dividend-Based Design Example
This was my first attempt at dividend-based design. It was a success.
This approach delivers 4.0% (plus inflation) far into the future. The downside risk is a 4-year reduction of 5%, which would be a withdrawal rate of 3.8% (plus inflation), followed by 4.0% or more (plus inflation).
I have followed the example with a Dividend-Based Design Outline. We are up to 4.8% (plus inflation), safely and perpetually, starting from today's market.
For a quick read, see the Dividend Sound Bite.
Dividend-Based Design Example
Dividend-Based Design Outline
Dividend Sound Bite
Lessons from the Dow Jones Utilities
We get great letters. Unclemick recently asked me to look at the Dow Jones Utilities Average. It has a long history with high dividend yields.
Here are some results. Here is how you can achieve a 4.0% to 4.8% (plus inflation) perpetual safe withdrawal rate.
Lessons from the Dow Jones Utilities
Historical Perspective: Dividends and Earnings
Central to any dividend-based strategy is assessing the quality of dividends. Critical to assessing the quality of dividends is assessing the quality of earnings.
I have extracted some information from The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. I have included an earlier article based on Benjamin Graham's teachings as well.
Historical Perspective: Dividends and Earnings
Historical Perspective
What Do I Really Think About Dividends?
Dividends raise today’s Safe Withdrawal Rate to 5.4% (plus inflation) of the portfolio’s initial balance.
Dividends extend the portfolio lifetime indefinitely, well beyond 40 or 50 years.
What Do I Really Think About Dividends?
What If There Is A Bubble?
Our TIPS/Dividends strategy looks great, starting today. But what if you had selected a dividend-based strategy back in 1995, before the bubble? You might have had to be out of the market for 20 years.
The answer: You would have done exceedingly well. Around 1995, you could have bought TIPS with a 4% (real) interest rate.
What about today? With today’s interest rates? What will happen if you have to wait 20 years before buying stocks?
The answer: You will be sitting pretty.
What If There Is A Bubble?
Revisiting P/E10: Dividends
Valuations have less relevance when estimating dividend amounts than prices. But they are relevant.
I checked a variety of measures. Even with dividends, P/E10 is best.
Revisiting P/E10: Dividends
Dividend Calculators A and B
I have added Dividend Calculators A and B to my Yahoo Briefcase. I based them on Dividend-Based Design Example. They allow you to estimate dividend growth. The estimates are in terms of the income stream, dividend amounts, not dividend yields, which vary with price.
All of the numbers include inflation adjustments (i.e., real dollars).
You can read all of the details in Current Research H, the Big Project.
I have placed the calculators in the Big Project folder in my Yahoo Briefcase. I have listed them as Dividend Calc A and Dividend Calc B.
Dividend-Based Design Example
Yahoo Briefcase
Current Research H
Dividend Growth Sensitivity Study
I was asked about what happens to dividend growth projections when I limit my investigation to more recent times, starting in the mid-1950s.
There are differences. Fortunately, they tend to reinforce, not undermine, our previous use of the data.
Dividend Growth Sensitivity Study
Three Powerful Advantages of Dividend Strategies
Here are three powerful advantages of dividend-based strategies.
1) Dividends continue indefinitely.
2) Dividends isolate you from price fluctuations.
3) Dividend-based strategies have a gentle failure mechanism.
Three Powerful Advantages of Dividend Strategies
CTVR Calculator A
Constant Terminal Value Rates (CTVR) are withdrawal rates that leave the balance at the end of a period identical to the initial balance plus inflation.
CTVR Calculator A is almost identical to Calculator H. It calculates 30-Year Constant Terminal Value Rates instead of rates that end with a zero balance.
Constant Terminal Value Rates are useful for young retirees. This Constant Terminal Value Rate Calculator is especially helpful when making comparisons with dividend strategies. Just understand that dividend amounts almost always grow substantially ahead of inflation over a 30 year period.
Current Research H
Yahoo Briefcase
Dividend Investors
Here are the Final Comments from Latch and Hold Equations CTVR. They appear in the latest Current Research I: Latch and Hold.
These data cover a variety of conditions. Viewed as a whole, they tell us a lot about the sensitivity of latch and hold to precise details. This lets us know what is reasonable to expect, looking forward.
I will use these results to generate simple, easy to use spreadsheet calculators.
These results favor dividend-based strategies when starting at today’s valuations. Yields from carefully selected dividend portfolios easily match these Coin Toss Rates (50%-50% odds). They easily beat these Safe Withdrawal Rates.
Latch and Hold Equations CTVR
Current Research I: Latch and Hold
Why Dividends Are Better
If you just looked at Gummy’s (Professor Peter Ponzo) Safe Withdrawal Rate formula, you would have no idea that withdrawing dividends is better than harvesting capital gains. It is.
What happens is that the statistical distribution CHANGES when there are dividends.
Why Dividends Are Better