The Santa Claus rally, if it’s going to happen, had better hurry. Santa has just two more tries to inject a little life into the equities markets. Over the past five trading sessions, the Dow has slipped by 0.18%, the S&P 500 has dipped by 0.28%, and the Nasdaq Composite is down 0.58%.
For the full year, the Dow is down 8.82%, the S&P 500 has dropped 19.44%, and the Nasdaq is down 33.03%.
In our preliminary list of the 2023’s Dogs of the Dow, we noted the various headwinds that equities faced in 2022. Those headwinds didn’t stop blowing on Friday and are likely to keep blowing, if now howling, for another quarter or two.
As a reminder, one strategy for dividend investors is buying the Dogs of the Dow at the end of the year. These 10 stocks pay higher dividends because their shares were selling off or underperforming. That’s why they’re called dogs. Three Dow 30 stocks–Disney, Boeing, and Salesforce–don’t pay dividends. Disney and Boeing have suspended their dividends, while Salesforce has never paid one.
The following table lists 2023’s Dogs of the Dow in descending order of dividend yield and includes the stock’s performance for all of 2022 and for the fourth quarter. The good news is that shares of all 10 stocks rose in the fourth quarter. The bad news is that the gains highlight just how poorly stocks performed in 2022.
