The Dividend Key

I thought I would kick the new year off with series of posts on why I have focused on investing in dividend paying stocks. There is scads of research out there that speaks to the benefits of a dividend based approach, and Tweedy, Browne Fund Inc. has put together a summary of these benefits and posted a pdf document which every investor should read. I think it is so important that I am doing a series of 6 posts that will present what I think are the most interesting findings from this summary. The findings I will present cover the root of my investing approach and why I am so passionate about this blog. Day 1 is going to look at the power of reinvested dividends.

Investment returns can come from a couple of different components, namely share price appreciation and dividends. Research that was conducted by Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh, and Mike Staunton discovered that on a short-term basis (i.e. year to year), investment returns have come primarily from share price appreciation. However, when they looked more long-term, it was clear that investment returns were driven by the reinvestment of dividends. The chart below highlights their research:

Impact of Reinvested DividendsClick to Enlarge

The interesting thing about this chart is it went broader than the US market and looked at the UK market as well. In both cases the benefits of dividend reinvestment is very clear.

Source: Tweedy Browne Company LLC (link opens a .pdf document)

(Photo Credit: daniel wildman)



You are interested in dividend investing? Check out my Free Dividend Investing eBook and don't forget to sign-up to my RSS Feeds!
11 Comments   |  

11 Comments

December 31, 2007, 10:51 am

Could you please link the Tweedy pdf that you mentioned, or email it to me.

Thanks.

..MG

December 31, 2007, 11:28 am

Great article. The power of compounding that it is like a silent engine that just keep working.

December 31, 2007, 1:10 pm

That’s a good site. In addition to the .PDF you mentioned, I found “What Has Worked In Investing” at http://www.tweedy.com/library_docs/papers/what_has_worked_all.pdf interesting also.

Best Wishes,
D4L

December 31, 2007, 1:15 pm

Hey MG – the link is here:

http://www.tweedy.com/library_docs/papers/highdivresearch.pdf

Thanks D4Life -that is a great article as well.

The Dividend Guy

December 31, 2007, 2:56 pm

Thanks for that…and Happy New Year!

January 7, 2008, 3:37 am

[...] The Dividend Guy presents the first in his series on using dividends to your advantage: Day 1: The Dividend Key – Reinvested Dividends. [...]

January 11, 2008, 8:14 am

[...] hosting this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance. My article kicking off a series of psots, Day 1: The Dividend Key – Reinvested Dividends, was [...]

February 5, 2008, 9:11 am

[...] is one of the most powerful concepts in finance and investing. It allows for the concept of compoundingto do its work. A question I received recently from a reader (thanks Tim) concerning dividend [...]

Tyler
September 16, 2008, 5:18 pm

Not to sound cynical but you FORGOT to mention that dividend investing is a double-edged sword.

One seeking to attain the highest return on his capital will surely buy a stock below its intrinsic value. However, re-investing the dividends to buy more shares at a more expensive price will effectively LOWER your cash return on invested capital for every dollar invested.

Post Comments

Notify me of followup comments via email