High Yield Outperforms

The average stock in the S&P 500 is now down 4.26% since the index peaked on April 23rd.  But at least based on dividends, the high-yield stocks are outperforming their low or no-yield brethren by quite a wide margin during the recent pullback.  When breaking up the S&P 500 into deciles (50 stocks in each decile) based on dividend yield, the deciles of stocks with the highest yields are barely down, while stocks with low or no yields are underperforming.  Investors typically flock to safer names during market declines, and it seems to be no different this time around.  To see our decile analysis performed on a number of other stock characteristics, subscribe to Bespoke Premium today.