Although dividend stocks lagged behind flashier tech stocks during the pandemic last year, their “long-term investment case remains solid.”
So concludes Amy Arnott, a portfolio strategist at Morningstar, in a recent note. A lot of the mutual funds that specialize in these stocks “really suffered from not having as much tech exposure” as other funds did, Arnott tells Barron’s. These equity income funds, Arnott adds, also took a hit owing to the many dividend cuts and suspensions last year as companies tried to preserve cash.
From Feb. 19 of last year, when the market peaked at what was then a record high, through March 23, the average stock dividend fund had a return of minus 36.6%, versus minus 33.5% for the S&P 500, according to Morningstar. The MSCI USA High Dividend Yield Index notched a slightly better result, with a gross return of minus 32.6% over that stretch.
Looking at the full year, the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (ticker: XLK), a proxy for large technology companies, returned 43.6% in 2020, well above the S&P 500’s 18.4% result or the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats ’ 8.7% return.
Beaten but Not Broken
Despite recent underperformance, the long-term case for dividend funds
Note: Returns as of Jan. 15. NA=Not applicable
Sources: Morningstar; Bloomberg; company reports
However, Arnott argues that dividend stocks have acquitted themselves better during various other challenging periods—performance levels they may well return to in future rough patches. Over the 41 five-year rolling periods from 1976 through 2020, dividend stocks outpaced the broader market in 25 of those spans. But as with so much else during the pandemic, 2020 was an aberration for dividend stocks.
“They’ve typically fared best during periods of slow economic growth and sluggish market returns, such as the early part of the [2000s] and in the 1980s, when stagflation dragged down market returns,” Arnott observed in her Jan. 11 note.
In contrast, dividend stocks trailed the broader market through much of the 1990s when the tech-stock bubble inflated. They “tend to fare worst during more ebullient times, such as 1995-99 and the generally strong period from 2016 through 2020,” she wrote.
Arnott also looked at the trailing 20-year returns and volatility, as measured by standard deviation, for dividend stocks. The MSCI USA High Dividend Yield Index had a 20-year annual return of 7.89%, versus 7.49% for the S&P 500. That dividend index also was less volatile over that period, with a standard deviation of 13.23, nearly two percentage points better than the broader market’s 15.08.
“Stocks with above-average dividends have generally held up relatively well in previous market downturns,” Arnott wrote, pointing to the fourth quarter of 1987, the early 2000s, and the fourth quarter of 2018 as examples.
To supplement Arnott’s observations, Barron’s looked at some of the equity income funds we have written about in recent years. None of these funds have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past 12 months.
Nearly all of them, however, have finished in the top half of the Morningstar category when measured by three- and five-year returns—and many have strong performance over even longer periods as well.
The T. Rowe Price Dividend Growth Fund (PRDGX), which tries to generate income and capital appreciation, has a one-year return of 12.3%, ranking second among the funds included in the accompanying table.
As of Dec. 31, the portfolio’s top sector weighting was technology at 22.2%, followed by health care at 16.5%, and financials at 12.8%. Its top two holdings were Microsoft (MSFT), which yields 1%, and Apple (AAPL), which yields 0.6%. Neither stock has a big yield. But Microsoft has returned about 36% over the past year, dividends included, and Apple has gained about 67%.
The Columbia Dividend Income Fund (GSFTX) has a one-year return of 9.2%. A fourth-quarter tailwind for the fund was an overweight position in bank stocks such as Bank of America (BAC), which yields 2.2%, and JPMorgan Chase (JPM), 2.7%.
“The segment benefited from the quarter’s rotation into value,” according to the fund managers’ commentary on the company’s website, adding that bank stocks helped as well.
The JPMorgan Equity Income Fund (OIEIX) had a tougher time of it, with a return of 4.8% over the past 12 months, placing it in the middle of the pack among its peers.
Under longtime lead manager Clare Hart, the portfolio has placed in the top half of its Morningstar peer group over the past three and five years and in the top 10% over the past 10 and 15 years. “Underperformance was predominantly a function of what we don’t own rather than what we do,” according to an assessment of the fund’s fourth-quarter performance by Hart and one of her colleagues, Jamie Steinhardt.
The managers also pointed out that Best Buy (BBY) and Home Depot (HD) “gave back some of their gains [despite] both companies reporting double-digit earnings growth.”
The fund did benefit from financial holdings such as Bank of America.
Actively managed funds aren’t the only option for investors. There are various ETFs, which typically hew to an index and don’t have a manager actively buying and selling stocks.
The Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG) has a one-year return of 13%, tops among the funds included in the table, helped by an ultralow expense ratio of 0.06%.
The fund, which tries to track the Nasdaq US Dividend Achievers Select Index, recently held 212 stocks with a median market capitalization of about $158 billion, giving it a large-cap bent.
As of Dec. 31, its biggest sector weighting was consumer discretionary at 22.8%, followed by industrials at 20.8%, and health care at 14.9%. Technology clocked in at 12.5%—showing that a dividend stock fund doesn’t have to have a big tech overweighting to perform well right now.
“The bottom line is that every down market is different, and dividend-oriented stocks won’t excel in every one,” Arnott wrote in her note’s conclusion. “Overall, though, they tend to hold up a bit better than average during times of market turbulence and have generated attractive risk-adjusted returns over longer periods.”
Write to Lawrence C. Strauss at lawrence.strauss@barrons.com
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