conventional wisdom
Two traditional general rules about the appropriate allocation between equity and fixed income are:
1. Take your age in years. That percentage of your assets should be in fixed income; the rest can be in equities. A thirty-year old, for example, should keep 30% of his assets in bonds and 70% in stocks. A seventy-year old should have the reverse proportions.
2. For a retiree, figure what your yearly expenses are. Keep enough fixed income so that the interest earned will cover these expenses; the rest can go into riskier assets like stocks.
Neither rule applies in today’s world, however, at least in my view.
Only a lottery winner has the luxury of using #2. Fifteen years ago, when the 10-year Treasury was yielding 8%, $1.25 million worth of them would generate $100,000 in interest income. Nowadays, you’d need a $5 million investment to earn the same.
Both rules subject the follower to considerable risk as/when interest rates begin to rise. My friend Denis Jamison deals with this subject in detail in his recent posts on PSI. …his conclusions.
my quandary
One of my former employers notified me recently that I’m being removed from participation in its fixed income pension plan. I can either take lump sum distribution or buy an annuity. I’ve chosen the former, which I’m rolling over into an IRA.
I want to keep the IRA money in income-generating assets, to counterbalance to some degree my growth investor desire to own stocks.
Believe it or not, it takes a month for my old company to process my request. Also, quaintly enough, it will issue a physical check and send it in the mail to my IRA account. Looking on the bright side, this gives me some time to figure out what to do.
So I’m looking for dividend-paying stocks. I’m not the only one, of course. And with this account I’m starting at a time when the search for such equities by individual investors is close to entering its third year. Has everything been picked over already?
first thoughts
My preliminary look around for information has turned up two interesting articles:
-the first comes from BCA Research, an independent organization headquartered in Canada (BCA stands for Bank Credit Analyst, its best-known publication). BCA continues to be very fundamentally sound. At one time it served primarily individuals and was somewhat technically-oriented and decidedly bearish in tone. Not so much any more. Today’s clients are mostly institutions.
In a February 2nd article titled US Equities: The Total Return Trap, BCA opines that traditional high income stock groups–utilities, telecom and REITS–are currently overvalued. It recommends looking for yield among pharmaceuticals, integrated oils and hypermarkets.
–A February 5th piece in the Financial Times points out that significant dividend yields are available among stocks in the EU and in the Pacific. The article lists the following current yields on various FT regional indices:
Europe (ex the UK) 3.80%
UK 3.40%
Asia Pacific (ex Japan) 3.16%
Global 2.70%
Japan 2.51%
US 1.96%.
my first stops
My order of preference is: US, UK, Asia ex Japan, Europe.
I’m not so keen on Japan. I think companies there prefer to pile up cash rather than pay dividends. The high yield is more a function of wretched stock market performance than rising payouts.
I don’t have strong thoughts on the relative strength of the € vs. the $. My hunch is that the € is going to be relatively weak, though, undermining the attractiveness of any dividend payment to a dollar-oriented recipient. If we’re going to enter an extended period of economic stagnation in Euroland, much like the “lost decade(s)” in Japan, however–and I think that’s the most likely scenario–one can reasonably make the argument that, like the ¥, the € could show surprising strength. I just don’t know. Until I have more conviction, why take the chance?
The UK is a very income-oriented market and doesn’t carry the same degree of currency uncertainty as the Eurozone, in my opinion.
I’ve got a couple of weeks to do some research. I’ll write more as I make progress.
