In the Dividend Growth model, manager James Hofmann looks for equities that have stable dividends and above average yields. He uses a value-based approach to investing and holds some cash in the model for market timing purposes. Recently, he added tobacco company Lorillard Inc (NYSE: LO) to the model. On November 23rd, LO had a dividend yield of 5.35 percent. On January 7th, 2009, LO had fallen to a low closing price of $53.80. The stock price has climbed significantly since then, reaching a closing price of $86.03 on November 19th. The company has also grown its sales from $3.5 billion in 2008 to $3.7 billion in 2009. By the third quarter of 2010, the company had already reported just over $3 billion in sales for the year.
Another position added to the Dividend Growth model is Hudson City Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ: HCBK). On November 23rd, HCBK’s dividend yield was 5.19 percent. HCBK’s stock price dipped to $8.53 at closing on March 9th, 2009 but has since risen—although not quite reaching 2008 highs. In 2008 they reported sales of $950.5 million, and in 2009 they had grown their sales to $1.3 billion. 2010 looks promising as well, with sales for the first three quarters totaling more than $1 billion.
Craig Steury uses computerized systems and a set of screening criteria to help determine which equities to add to his Algorithmic Trading model. Recently, he added Molycorp Inc (NYSE: MCP) to the model. MCP is a rare earth oxide producer, which makes them an important factor in the production of clean energy technologies. On November 15th the company released their third quarter 2010 financial results. Their sales grew 329 percent over the same quarter of the previous year, but still missed meeting analysts’ expectations. In September the company announced the launch of their water purification system that relies on rare earth elements for filtration.
*All prices used in this post obtained from Yahoo! Finance.
