Go Global, But Don’t Go Crazy

DIVIDEND SPOTLIGHT

New Best Buy Pick in Telecommunications

By Richard Stavros

At 7.48%, this U.K.-based communications company is the new Best Buy in my conservative portfolio (which is made up of 10 safety-rated stocks).

With a solid base of over 100 million customers in Europe, they're well positioned to safely expand globally. They're conquering new markets by onboarding millions of customers in India, Turkey, and across Africa.

I continue to watch U.S.-based Verizon (NYSE:VZ); more updates later. I don't currently recommend Spain-based Telefónica (NYSE:TEF), as Robert outlines below.

My Best Buy is without a doubt the safest dividend in telecommunications – find out more here.

FEATURE INCOME ARTICLE

Go Global, But Don't Go Crazy

By Robert Frick

Our credo here at Global Income Edge is you collect the best returns by going global—but by best we also mean relatively safe. Simply chasing the highest yields without weighing risks can land you in some shaky investments.

For example, some single-country, exchange-traded funds have high yields, but you wouldn't want to own most of them because the countries' economies leave a lot to be desired. (These single-country ETFs own stocks that reflect an index of those countries' stock markets.)

Take Spain. Just two years ago its "country yield" of more than 6% was leading the dividend pack. And even when Europe's economy in general, and Spain's in particular, started showing cracks from high debt, many of the country's companies with the highest dividends vowed to keep paying them. In some cases their dividends exceeded their profits.

If you invested in a Spain ETF for dividends back then, you were begging to be gored, like running blindfolded with the bulls at Pamplona. The first big dividend domino to fall was Spain's communications giant, Telefónica, which suspended i! ts dividend two years ago.

Others followed, and while the Spanish stock market has largely recovered from double-digit losses in 2010 and 2011, the dividend payout has shrunk to a 2.82% trailing 12-month yield, as paid by the iShares MSCI Spain Capped ETF.

Other countries with high yields today have much stronger economies than Spain's, but their markets aren't very diversified.

Belgium, for example, often has a high country yield (it's currently 3.63%, based on iShares MSCI-Belgium ETF), but more than one-fifth of the country's stock market value is wrapped up in a single company: AB InBev. InBev, the world's largest beer brewer, has 25% of the global market, and beer will never go out of style. Still, if you're expecting the safety of diversification from a country fund you won't get much from Belgium.

One country, though, pays a high yield and is just our cup of tea.

The United Kingdom's country yield currently tops 6% (as measured by the iShares MSCI United Kingdom ETF, symbol: EWU).   What we like about the UK is many of the safety features we use in choosing stocks for our Global Income Edge conservative and aggressive portfolios are baked into the UK stock market.

In fact, two of the nine holdings in our conservative portfolio, GlaxoSmithKline and Vodaphone, are UK-based.

The United Kingdom's economy is large (sixth-largest in the world), stable and well-diversified. Virtually all of its stock market's largest holdings are global in scope, meaning they can tap into emerging countries' growth. It benefits from being a financial intermediary between the East and West and is the second largest financial capital in the world (after the U.S., which, by the way, has a 1.9% dividend yield, based on the Standard & Poor's 500).

We look for low-volatility stocks for our portfolios and the UK is a low-volatility country, being relatively stable compared to Europe and to world markets in general. Mutual fund rating company Morn! ingstar c! alls the ETF a defensive holding based in part on this relatively low volatility and its relatively large portion of consumer defensive stocks.

And the UK is a country with a tradition of companies that pay high dividends, which speaks to the sustainability of an ETF's dividend payout.

Such stability, together with a high yield, comes with a price. And with the UK you shouldn't expect dynamic stock market gains. The ETF's five-year and 10-year average annualized gains are 10% and 6.5% respectively. That's about 2 percentage points less than the average country/region's return over the same period.
But for investors looking for high dividends, high diversification and low volatility, the UK (via iShares MSCI United Kingdom ETF) is a buy up to $22.    

A Safer Approach to Global Income

The prospect of investing abroad can be intimidating for many investors. That's why we've made it simple… every single global stock we list is available on a U.S. exchange.

Not only does this guarantee that our stock picks easy to buy, but it also means that we can verify financial data with certainty.

So don't let the word "global" scare you away from the high-yield dividend stocks you need. Earn phenomenal income from the U.S. and abroad… read our list of dividends.

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