Maximizing Yield with Alpine's Dividend Funds

Roger Nusbaum submits: The Alpine Total Dynamic Dividend Fund (AOD), or is it Dynamic Total Dividend, listed and is trading. Here's a good video explanation.

According to the video, AOD can go 100% foreign as opposed to Alpine Global Dynamic Dividend (AGD) which has a limit of 80% foreign. AOD has put tax qualified lower as a priority than AGD. The bigger thing will be foreign dividends and its capture method for taking in more dividends.

The idea goes something like this: let's say you find three financial stocks that each yield 3%. All three are on different dividend cycles; one goes ex-dividend on the Jan, April, July and Oct and the other two go ex-dividend on the other two cycles. Pretending everything else is static, this idea could yield 9%. There are plenty of things to get in the way of this going perfectly, but for now that is not the point.

Many foreign companies pay once or twice a year, so depending on what you can find on the calendar, with no regard for taxes and the yield could go up a lot. This is not going to yield 20% or anything like that, but Alpine knows what they are doing as demonstrated by their other funds.

If it is not clear by now, AOD is probably a better fit for an IRA.

One last thing: Like all CEFs that come to market, the underwriting fees are embedded in the price, so the fund will be at a premium to NAV for a while or maybe longer. AGD has traded at a premium its entire life, according to ETFconnect.

On a related note, Barron's had an article over the weekend about a Dogs of the Dow strategy for European stocks. I own several of the stocks listed in client accounts.

Regardless of how you access dividends for your account, a high yield is vital to make your job as your own portfolio manager much easier.

Too many OEFs come up short on yield, IMO.