Yield Boosting, Volatility Reducing Dividend Stocks

For investors seeking current income this is the proverbial free lunch. Adding these stocks to your existing equity portfolio should provide the dual benefit of increasing current income while lowering portfolio volatility. The other considerations would be for the stocks to be at fair value since the goal is to seek current income and to a lesser extent price appreciation. Stocks that offer this benefit have low correlations to the market, high dividend yields, and low volatility. The screen was run to identify a short list of stocks with low betas and dividend yields. I also screened for market capitalizations above $300 million. The initial screen identified 523 stocks with a beta less than .5 and a positive dividend yield. First, a low but positive beta on average lowers the risk the portfolio, but does not create as much diversification as a negative beta which automatically implies a negative correlation... Read more