Week 342 - Industrial Companies in “The 2 and 8 Club” (Extended Version)

Situation: There are many industrial companies that enjoy good earnings over long time intervals. But these earnings are yoked to the economic cycle and tend to be volatile. This unsettles investors. Companies in the Financial Services, Consumer Discretionary, and Information Technology industries face the same problem. However, those 4 industries are also responsible for most of the growth in the US stock market. Stockpickers have to either stare at ugly “paper losses” from time to time, or behave like retail investors and “buy high, sell low.” For the former group, which has absorbed losses, studies show that they’ll spend 4% less money on consumer goods than customary. But when the stock market is up a lot, they’ll spend 4% more. The mechanics of maintaining what you’ve obtained may be difficult to explain to your life partner, but your heirs will understand. The harder part (for your life partner) is to understand why you allocate more money to the stock market when its down but less when its up!  

The takeaway message from this is that money needs to be taken “off the table” when the market is frothy, and spent. With the current market, now would be a good time to start doing that. At every one of Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meetings that I’ve attended, Warren Buffett reprises his famous quote: “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful”. In other words, allocate more of your income to the stock market when the economy is in a slump. Baron Rothschild put a fine point on it 202 years ago, when he profited mightily from the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo: “Buy when there’s blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own”. Caveat Emptor: The opposing argument, that “timing the market” never works, is widely respected.

Mission: If you want to at least keep up with the S&P 500 Index, you’ll have to focus much of your research on industrial stocks. So, here are 6 industrial stocks that 1) pay good & growing dividends, and 2) are highly rated by S&P and Morningstar. See our Week 329 blog for a detailed explanation of how we pick stocks from the Barron’s 500 List that have at least a 2% dividend yield and an 8%/yr dividend growth rate (over the previous 5 years). 

Execution: see Table.

Bottom Line: Industrial companies take advantage of a growing economy. However, their stock prices fluctuate more widely than most investors can tolerate. You have to be a bit of a gambler to become an enthusiast. Over the long term, you’ll grow to be happy with the rewards. Just don’t expect your risk-adjusted total returns to be any better than you’d realize from owning shares in an S&P 500 Index fund, unless your hobby is to analyze industrial companies. To do so, it helps if you decide that only a few companies are likely to reward the time you spend on their study. We think the 6 industrial companies in “The 2 and 8 Club” are worth your time (see Table).

Risk Rating: 7 (where 10-Yr US Treasury Notes = 1, S&P 500 Index = 5, and gold bullion = 10)

Full Disclosure: I dollar-cost average into MMM, and also own shares of CMI and CAT.

"The 2 and 8 Club" (CR) 2017 Invest Tune Retire.com

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