Lowell Miller’s Best Dividend Screen

john roediger from Maine posted 9 months ago:

Any performance numbers?
John

Dave from Washington posted 9 months ago:

Unbelievable: The AAII model portfolio would leave a retired investor looking for "what hit me"..The income from this portfolio is nill. The AAII model is almost useless for a person who is retired.

Dave from Washington posted 9 months ago:

Miller's approach to investing is quite good. It seems it is in sharp contrast to the very low dividend return of the AAII model portfolio which seems almost useless to the retired investor.

Tom from New Hampshire posted 9 months ago:

My investing style has evolved over the past fifty years into this basic philosophy. My returns have been greater than the market. It keeps me in the market and reduces stress, because I know that I will still have my growing dividend income.

tiomiguel from Arizona posted 9 months ago:

So, is the SI Pro "Miller SBI Screen" available anywhere on the AAII web site? Or at least the criteria used to construct its custom filters & fields? I'm an SI Pro subscriber, but it would be nice not to have to build this screen entirely from scratch!

Bwheeler. from Washington posted 9 months ago:

You guys are missing the point of the Model Portfolio - It explicitly says it is to demonstrate that a consistently applied set of rules is what will work for you. Learn the discipline and you have a good change of success. Flip flop and you go broke fast.

The Portfolio rules even change over time as evidence indicates the change has positive value.

Focusing exclusing on dividend returns will work for a while, and then it won't for a while.

Mr. Millers approach is one of many successful investing approaches. They keys to them all, is understand what your rules are trying to accomplsh, stick to your discpline over time, and lastly change when the evidence says it's time to change.

William Fink from Florida posted 9 months ago:

Be careful. I was not impressed with three of the stocks found by the screen, MDP, SI, and RTN. I have no opinion on SXL. RTN, for example, has unmet pension obligations of 6 Billion according to ValueLine. That is equal to 1/3 of its market cap. Also, I have found that price is a very important factor. Look at the 1 year price chart. The odds of having anything to show for an investment in RTN at this time seem to be very low. Sequestration will probably not be too helpful in the near term. None of this will matter if a major conflict arises, but I don't like to bet on that possibility.

ron from Florida posted 9 months ago:

great rules to follow and I like the the results ! Time to add to my position in SI

Bill from Florida posted 9 months ago:

My comments are not intended to criticize this concept but there are a couple of things to remember:

1. If you invested in 1929, it took until the 1940's just to break even and

2. In our most recent major market downturn, dividend stocks fell very hard.

Having faith in the future means that we have faith our government will make sound financial decisions, something I don't think is in our immediate future.

Having said all of that, I would like to see this screen included with the other screens.

Kyle from California posted 8 months ago:

Yield can be augmented by writing (selling) options against the stock.

Ronnie Spruell from Louisiana posted 8 months ago:

How about posting the SI Pro Screen?

Barry from Illinois posted 8 months ago:

When I emailed John B. to answer a few simple questions concerning the AAII's Stock Investor Pro, I never received a response. What good is the AAII screening tool if members can't get feedback about its use?

Ian Hulley from posted 8 months ago:

I would like the sii screen as well

Jeff Derosa from Ohio posted 8 months ago:

I take exception to the comments about the AAII Model Shadow Stock being almost useless to the retired investor. I find the AAII Model Shadow Stock Portfolio to be AN EXCELLENT CHOICE FOR THE RETIRED INVESTOR's PORTFOLIO!!!My resons are as follows:
1)Last checked I believe that the AAII Model Shadow Stock Portfolio had a 10 year of about 22% and a 17.7% compound annual return since its inception in 1993
2) I take a "Total Return Approach" in planning for retirement portfolio income. In other words I am not afraid to harvest retirement income from Long/Short Term Capital Gains/Losses, just as long as I am getting a respectable total return from my portfolio.
3) Furthermore from a Taxation Point of view I would rather harvest my Retirement Income from Short Term Capital Losses, Long Term Capital Losses, and Long Term Capital Losses, because of the preferential tax treatment.
4) As far as dividends go I have also have a problem from the standpoint that dividends are taken from Corporate Profits which are already taxed at the corporate level and then in many cases taxed again at the individual level when they are distributed to shareholders. I find this to be extremely inefficient. In IRAs and 401(k)s and other tax preferred accounts this may not be an issue, but this is definitely an issue in non-tax preferred accounts.
5) The AAII Model Shadow Stock Portfolio does have some annual portfolio turnover which also creates an excellent opportunity to harvest some portfolio income for retirement.
6) If an Investor has a need to harvest some retirement income they can do this by simply selling a few stocks.
7)I do not find Stock Brokerage commissions to be much of a problem either. Many Discount Brokerage firms charging between $5.00 & $10.00 per trade, if an investor has a $100,000 portfolio comprised of 20 stocks with an average value of $5,000/stock selling one stock from the AAII Model Shadow Stock
Portfolio, with a commission range between $5.00 - $10 per trade works out to a rate of .1% to .2% which is very reasonable. I believe these estimates to be on the conservative side since I would venture to guess that most retirement Investors have portfolios much larger than $100,000

Jeff Derosa from Ohio posted 8 months ago:

I appologize on Point #3 I mentioned "Long Term Capital Losses" twice. It should read "....Long Term Capital Losses and Long Term Capital Gains"
Sorry.

David Haartz from Virginia posted 8 months ago:

I started my increasing dividend portfolio 39 1/2 years ago. Today I have 82 stocks in the portfolio, added gradually over that time frame. I get, on average, one dividend every day the market is open. Last year there were 104 dividend increases in the portfolio. So in addition to a dividend every day, my income increases twice a week. This is all in a taxable account. I retired 21 years ago. My dividend income is just over three times the peak salary that I earned as an engineer. I spend all the income every year. The last year that I added capital to the account was 1999, when I sold some real estate and put the proceeds into the account. Since year end 1999 to year end 2012, the value of this portfolio increased 26% while the dividend income increased 125%. I have never harvested losses or gains to generate capital to live on. All harvested proceeds have been reinvested to generate more income. This works for me, and it has worked every year for the last 39 1/2 years.

S Jain from California posted 8 months ago:

It would help to get the screen on SI Pro or a screen dump of the screen editor.

Fernando Robles from Florida posted 8 months ago:

In theory, having a framework like Lowell Miller's to pick stocks could work better that having no framework at all. My problem is with the long-term holding portion of his philosophy. Time is the killer of returns.

Ralph Rice from New Jersey posted 5 months ago:

To David Haartz
We should have been friends years ago.I spent 20 yrs buying and selling and have trading books showing what was accomplished.Have finally found hat you knew 39 yrs ago.Did you need a screen or IP to determine your purchases.
Thank you many times over.

Fred Wolter from Illinois posted 4 months ago:

I agree that a copy of the screen set-up would be helpful.

James Allen from Illinois posted 3 months ago:

To John from Maine: Go to millerhoward.com to see performance numbers. Miller/Howard funds are available through large wirehouses as separately managed accounts with a minimum of $50k. Alternatively, buy Destra funds which use M/H as a subadvisor. To all others: AAII has their own dividend screen. Use that one if you can't bring yourself to pay an advisory fee or own a Destra mutual fund. The real key is risk-adjusted performance and Miller/Howard does well in that category. AAII's dividend screen will do the same, I bet.