Performance update – December 2020
Our International Dividend Portfolio gained 1.63% in US$ and 0.39% in € in December. The full-year performance is 9.69% in US$ for the International Dividend Portfolio.
Since its inception in 2009, the portfolio has returned 330% in US$ and 389% in €, excluding reinvesting dividends.
Last month’s performance dashboard shows some mixed gains (10 stocks) and losses (5 stocks). Looking at the full-year performance of the individual holdings, Microsoft and L’Oreal gained the most, and real-estate (Realty Income) and energy (Chevron) were the laggards.
The German software provider and European dividend aristocrat SAP is recovering from its lows (90€) and closed the year at €107.22.
Dividend Events
In December, only two stocks in this portfolio went ex-dividend. Here are the details:
Realty Income (O)
- Realty Income declared a $ 0.2345/share monthly dividend, 0.2% increase from the prior dividend of $0.234.
- Forward yield 4.66%
- Payable Jan. 15; for shareholders of record Jan. 4; ex-div Jan. 31.
Automatic Data Processing (ADP)
- ADP declared a $0.93/share quarterly dividend, 2.2% increase from the prior dividend of $0.91.
- Forward yield 2.17%
- Payable Jan. 1; for shareholders of record Dec. 11; ex-div Dec. 10.
Summary International Dividend Portfolio
Below a summary of the International Dividend Portfolio holdings:
About
The International Dividend Portfolio objective is to generate dividend income every month, based on international dividend growth stocks, and over the long-term preserve and grow the invested capital. The total return is expected to follow the MSCI World index and a dividend growth rate between 4%-9%.
Holdings are rarely sold as long as dividend pay-outs are not cut and managed with a “buy-and-hold investor” mind-set. The International Dividend Portfolio contains mainly US and European stocks, so mature markets, but the related companies will often have exposure to emerging markets as well.
Getting started
We created the International Dividend Portfolio, so customers can follow a selection of international dividend stocks. Some investors could mirror the portfolio holding for holding, but others use the list to generate investment ideas and make sense of trends and risk/returns in their own portfolios.
If you decide to mirror the portfolio, our recommendation would be to invest equally across all holdings. This provides diversification between stocks, sectors, and currencies. Preferably the value of one individual stock is always below 5%-8%. Some holdings may appear undervalued and some overvalued, so we provide some guidelines/rules when to buy or not to buy (see section “Timing”). Please take into account that there is currency risk and a potential dividend tax (withholding tax) for certain (US)-investors.
Dividend – Payment Schedule
One of the objectives of our dividend portfolio is to receive a dividend every month, below is an overview of the month in which the shares normally go ex-dividend. The diagram gives you more details on the ex-dividend months per stock. For example, Realty Income is a monthly dividend payer, while all US-stocks are paying quarterly. L’Oreal (France) and Roche (Switzerland) pay annually.
