Top 10 Dividend Kings: Outperformance Continues

Significant Outperformance of the High Cash Distribution Dividend Kings
In my last article on the Dividend Kings, I explained why yield investors must focus on the total cash returns to shareholders and not just on the dividend distributions.
Dividends are only one side of the story. The net change in outstanding shares is the other side. In the current environment, buybacks are usually more important than dividends. However, investors routinely overlook share dilutions and underappreciate stock repurchases.
My strategy focuses on the top 10 Dividend Kings (The Top 10 Kings) in terms of the shareholder yield. If on the first day of 2019, one invested in The Top 10 Kings with the highest net cash distributions (shareholder yield), until the end of August, this portfolio would outperform the 26 Dividend Kings by 8.05%.
Anyone who wants to utilize this strategy does not need to wait until the next January. Monthly, I will publish a list of The Top 10 Kings. Thus, the updated list will be available for new investments or the annual rebalancing.
Since the beginning of this year, an equally-weighted portfolio of the 10 Dividend Kings with the highest shareholder yield (dividend yield + net buyback yield) returned 25.34% (Portfolio 2). For comparison, during the same period, an equally-weighted portfolio of the 26 Dividend Kings returned 17.39% (Portfolio 1). At the end of July, the performance difference was 4.73%. However, August was particularly successful for The Top... Read more