what are dogs of the dow 
 dogs of the dow is an investment strategy that attempts to beat the dow jones industrial average djia each year by leaning portfolios toward high yield investments the general concept is to allocate money to the 10 highest dividend yielding blue chip stocks among the 30 components of the djia this strategy requires rebalancing at the beginning of each calendar year 1understanding dogs of the dowbecause the dow is one of the oldest and most widely followed indexes in the world and generally is seen as a barometer for the broader market it is not uncommon for market strategists to base investing techniques on some components of the djia the main reason to follow the dogs is that it presents a straightforward formula designed to perform roughly in line with the dow though not an entirely new concept this strategy first became a popular fixture in 1991 following the publication of michael b o higgins book beating the dow in the book o higgins also coined the name dogs of the dow 1dogs of the dow methodologydogs of the dow relies on the premise that blue chip companies do not alter their dividend to reflect trading conditions and therefore the dividend is a measure of the average worth of the company in contrast the stock price does fluctuate throughout the business cycle 1this should mean that companies with a high dividend relative to stock price are near the bottom of their business cycle so their stock price likely would increase faster than companies with low dividend yields in this scenario an investor reinvesting in high dividend yielding companies annually would hope to outperform the overall market there are many ways to purchase these securities you can hand pick individual stocks and build your own portfolio invest directly in the dow through exchange traded funds etfs or you can follow the dogs of the dow strategy whose stocks offer better yields than the dow as a whole often in fact the dogs have been able to outperform the dow over the course of the year the 2023 dogs of the dow are listed below 2