The Risk Of Buying Dividend Growth Stocks Without Looking

Essentially I am looking for generous total return with some lower volatility than the broad market index. It would be nice if the equal weighting of the top holdings of VIG beat the broader market (NYSEARCA:SPY) index. My personal goals are decent total returns with much lower volatility and that is why I stand at about 50% stocks to 50% bonds. It's a mix that is likely to underperform in low volatility bull markets, but outperform through any market correction(s). The recent mini market correction provides an opportunity to see if stripping out just 15 holdings from an index created more volatility compared to holding the total index ETF. I certainly recognized some of the diversification risks in my original article.

In March of 2015 I sold VIG and purchased these 15 individual holdings: 3M (NYSE:MMM), Pepsi (NYSE:PEP), CVS Health Corporation (NYSE:CVS), Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), United Technologies (NYSE:UTX), Lowe's (NYSE:LOW), Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA), Medtronic (NYSE:MDT), Nike (NYSE:NKE), Abbott Labs (NYSE:ABT), Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE:CL), Texas Instruments (NASDAQ:TXN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). That is the core of my US holdings. As 'picks' I also hold Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.B). The account is very conservative, having started the year with more than 50% bonds, it now sits about 50% equities to 50% bonds as all portfolio income was reinvested into the equities.

Source: Seeking Alpha

Related Articles:
- 10 Small/Mid-Cap Dividend Growth Stocks Answering The Call
- Free Cash Flow Payout vs. Dividend Payout
- 8 Dividend Stocks With The Right Stuff
- 6 Dividend Stocks Trading at a Double-Digit Discount
- 5 Best U.S. Dividend Growth Stocks