At the beginning of the year, I used my Holidays to write The 2012 Best Dividend Stock eBook. I completed 30 analyses of 21US and 9 Canadian stocks. The reason why I had picked these dividend payers and not others was the result of using several filters.
While it’s fun to make lists and talk about them, I feel that bloggers and financial journalists often fail to follow-up on their selections. This is why I decided to take a look back at my predictions and see how well (or how bad!) I did with my picks.
Best US Dividend Stocks for 2012
Avon Products Inc AVP 10.82%
AT&T T 3.27%
Black Rock Inc BLK 14.96%
Chevron Corp CVX 0.76%
Conoco Phillips COP 4.30%
Flowers Food Inc FLO 7.32%
Garmin Ltd GRMN 18.01%
General Mills Inc GIS -2.37%
Hasbro Inc HAS 15.15%
Harris Corp HRS 25.07%
Intel Corp INTC 13.93%
Johnson & Johnson JNJ 0.57%
Lockheed Martin Corp LMT 11.08%
Microsoft Corp MSFT 24.25%
PepsiCo Inc PEP 0.00%
Procter & Gamble PG 0.75%
RadioShack Corp RSH -35.93%
Seagate Technology PLC STX 64.35%
Sunoco Logistics Partners LP SXL -4.04%
Wisconsin Energy Corp WEC 0.63%
Waste Management Inc WM 6.87%
Average 8.56%
All right… I know… you told me… I should not have RadioShack (RSH) in this group. In fact, if I take this one off my list, the average return jumps by 2%! ButRSHproblem came after posting disastrous results at the end of January:
“The retailer forecast fourth-quarter earnings of just 11 cents to 13 cents a share. Wall Street had expected 37 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.” Read the rest of the article here. There is nothing like gross margin problems to sink a stock!
On the bright side, I was also able to pick some superstars for this quarter. Among them, we find Seagate (STX), Microsoft (MSFT), Harris Corp (HRS) and Garmin (GRMN). Hmmm… out of these 4 stocks, 3 of them are listed on Nasdaq (the whole index soared in Q1). I guess it’s easier to have good picks when you are aiming at the right sector (in this case, techno was the buzz word for Q1!).
When I look at my overall selections, I must say that I’m pretty proud. If you consider the portfolio as a whole, you have great diversification in terms of sectors while you are still very close to what the market did. On the other hand, if the market hadn’t been that bullish, my portfolio would have probably performed a lot better (due to the consistent dividend yield).
Best Canadian Dividend Stocks for 2012:
| BCE | BCE | -5.96% |
| Corus Entertainment Inc | CJR.B | 15.74% |
| Gamehost Inc | GH | 4.36% |
| IGM Financials | IGM | 5.01% |
| Leon’s Furniture Ltd | LNF | -2.41% |
| Magna International | MG | 39.88% |
| National Bank of Canada | NA | 10.01% |
| Telus Corp | T | 0.42% |
| Toronto-Dominion Bank | TD | 10.97% |
| Average | 8.67% |
The Canadian portfolio is even better than my US picks. I beat the TSX down with a shovel. The best part is that my stocks beat the index with and without the dividend yield. I must highlight a special mention to Magna (MG) which soared by 40%+ in 3 months. This is rather exceptional but luck is also part of investing sometimes ;-). The financial sector did pretty well too this quarter so my 3 selections (NA, TD and IGM) beat the overall index (without considering their dividends).
These Stock Picks Should Do Well for the Rest of 2012
In light of the analysis of both portfolios, I’m pretty happy with my results so far. While I really want to beat the market, I think I’m pretty close to my objective. I’m confident that I will continue to show strong results and that you could benefit from this eBook to get some stock picking ideas (you can download it here).
What do you think of my performance? Are you surprised? Were you expecting a different result?
Disclaimer: I hold CVX, INTC, JNJ, NA, T (and I wish I had MSFT, STX and MG!)