16.4.12

dividendharvest.com

July, 2011. We started our selection or pics of good companies to create a "dividend portfolio". The idea behind was to collect dividends from nice and stable stocks. So far we've been more than successful. On the chart on the left we compare our "cartera" (portfolio) with the Spanish index, an easy one, no comments. Note: last year, during a radio interview, the journalist and some participants kept asking me about my opinion of Spanish stocks. I had a really bad time and kept saying that I didn't like them. I tried to change the topic to explain a possible strategy like long DAX / short Ibex, but it was impossible as they were really stubborn.

In DividendHarvest, we have chosen German and US stocks for the moment. You can freely check our portfolio. If we compare our performance with the Eurostoxx index, we easily beat it, even though we have bought many German stocks. The difference is around 20% in less than a year. But, what about our portfolio against the Dow Jones?

Now, the situation doesn't look so clear, however we will show certain advantages of our portfolio. First of all, our curve is much smoother, with less volatility. Second, if you started this portfolio in euros and dollars, on July 2011 EURUSD=1.43 (now 1.31) and there has been only two buys (number 9 and 10) underneath that price, the rest are way above. We have used the currencies in our algorithm as well.

Last, and we keep it to ourselves, the amount of shares we decide to buy follows a money management algorithm to optimise returns. In any case, with this portfolio we are focused on the crop (dividends), not the increase in price of the stocks.

We will keep on building our portfolio and for curiosity you can track it in dividendharvest.com and in our Twitter: @simplynorisk.