Vodafone Group Plc (ADR) (VOD), AT&T Inc. (T) And The World’s Best Dividend Portfolio

In June 2011, I invested my money equally in a selection of 10 high-yield dividend stocks. With a year of success behind me, in July 2012, I added even more money to the portfolio. Those names offer triple the yield of the average S&P 500 stock. You can read all the details here. Now let’s check out the results so far.

Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor’s.

The portfolio continued to perform strongly, though on relative terms. While it was down 0.6 percentage points since the last article, to 22.6% gains, the outperformance on the S&P grew, from 1.1 points to 2.8. That’s strong performance for a week, but it suggests that investors are moving to “safe” dividend-paying assets. That flight to safety may ultimately presage a market move lower, but we’ll see. In any case, it suggests that investors are getting more cautious and shun riskier assets. But as I’ve said all along, I expect we’ll outperform in down markets, and we continue to see that.

The blended yield is 4.9%, and we have more than $300 in cash in the portfolio, with more on the way in the next 10 days. I’ve been holding more cash than I normally would expecting a market downturn after the runaway start to the markets this year.

We’re coming up on the two-year anniversary of the portfolio in June, and I’m planning to add more money and perhaps more positions. In addition, I may shake things up a little bit and sell some stocks from the portfolio. Have any good dividend stocks to buy or ones from the portfolio to sell? Let me know in the comment box below.