Every year, one of the best strategies is the Dogs of the Dow. You simply buy a basket of underperformers on the Dow that pay dividends, and sell by the end of the year.
For 2025, here’s how the Dogs are doing with just days to go.
Verizon (VZ), which yields 6.85%, started the year at around $38. It’s. now up to $40.
Chevron (CVX), which yields 4.54%, ran from about $142 to $150.50.
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), which yields 2.5%, ran from $142 to $207.78.
Amgen (AMGN), which yields 3.02%, ran from about $258 to $334.
Merck (MRK), which yields 3.19%, ran from about $98 to $106.45.
Coca-Cola (KO), which yields 2.91%, jumped from $61 to $70.11 so far.
IBM (IBM), which yields 2.21%, ran from about $215 to a $304.56.
Cisco (CSCO), which yields 2.1%, ran from about $58 to $78.
McDonald’s (MCD), which yields 2.37%, ran from about $293 to $313 so far.
Procter & Gamble (PG), which yields 2.93%, fell from about $264 to $144.50.
That’s not bad at all.
Plus, once you factor in the yields for each, the Dogs outperformed the Dow Jones.
Leverage can be your greatest friend, and in the wrong hands your greatest enemy. One obvious example of leverage is the National Lottery. You can pay only $1.00 and have the opportunity to win (through pure luck) millions of dollars, turning $1.00 into $15,000.00! Of course in the lottery your total loss is limited to your original investment.
Unlike shares and options where you have to pay in full for the transaction, futures contracts, as you are probably aware, only require a small deposit to control thousands of dollars worth of a physical commodity. You only need to put down a deposit of 5-10% of the total value of the underlying commodity to be able to buy or sell a contract. The advantages of this system are obvious – although you have to only put up a small deposit, if your analysis of the market proves to be correct, you are set to gain from the actual change in the value of the underlying commodity.
In the markets leverage can be a two-edged sword. As fast as you can make money you can lose it. This is why futures trading is classed as a high-risk investment. But risk is only dangerous if you create risk... by lacking the necessary information about the market you are trading in.
So as speculators, just like hedgers, there are two ways in which you can be positioned in the market. However this time, there is no interest in the underlying commodity, only the price fluctuations of that particular market and how you can exploit them for pure profit.
Make Money from Rising Prices
Every business revolves around the principle of buying at a low price and reselling at a higher price for a profit. From a corner shop to national supermarket chains, all buy in at a low price and then hope to sell at a higher price for a profit.
Happy Holidays to you and thank you once again for joining us every week with the Optioneering Newsletter! We look forward to the new year with you! In the continuing bullish market let’s review one stock, one call, and two debit spreads.
On the AKR monthly chart the latest ‘Buy Signal’ started with the November 2025 close. In its current bullish run between the Upper and Middle Channels AKR continues to rise.
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