Dividend-yield

Most investors want a simple formula for making reasonable gains in the stock market. The authors have done just that. Early in the book they tell you what their five simple steps are (in one paragraph) then proceed to explain why their method works. My only criticism is that the book is 1/3 text and 2/3 performance tables backing up their research. Does dividend investing work? My stock portfolio has beaten the S&P 500 for the last 2 years since I began using their technique.

Anthony Spare and Paul Ciotti make a logical, but uninspired, case for making Relative Dividend Yield part of one's equity valuation and also one's buy/sell decisions. The book is clearly written and offers ample graphs to substantiate the notion of buying equities when dividend yields are high, and selling them once they are low.

Actually, the graphs may be too ample...readers of this rather expensive 248-page book will quickly learn that the text is a bit long on charts showing individual equity dividend yields relative to stock indexes over time, and a bit short on specifics concerning the avoidance of issues whose yields are high for good reason.

That's the book's essential deficiency: the authors devote a mere twelve overly general pages to "Pitfalls and Preventative Measures" (Chapter 6). Also, since investors will likely have a difficult time constructing the kinds of charts the Relative Dividend Yield methodology requires, it would have been helpful to offer tips on a cost-effective means to make this methodology applicable in real-time. The authors do, however, provide graphs with prior relative dividend yield histories, with room to continue plotting these yields, on several "blue chip" dividend-paying equities.