Dividend yield strategies in the British stock market

Abstract

One particular investment strategy, a dividend yield strategy, has been in existence for several years. This strategy consists of investing an equal dollar amount in each of the ten stocks of a market index with the highest dividend yields. With yearly rebalancing, the portfolio return in the United States over time has exceeded that of the Dow. In this paper, we find that a similar dividend yield investment strategy in Britain was not effective between March 1984 and February 1994. The portfolio returns exceeded the market returns on both unadjusted and risk adjusted bases, in only four years. The superior multiple year Top Ten portfolio performances were primarily due to the outstanding second year returns.