Dividends Still Don't Lie: The Truth About Investing in Blue Chip Stocks and Winning in the Stock Market

by Kelley Wright

A timely follow-up to the bestselling classic Dividends Don't Lie In 1988 Geraldine Weiss wrote the classic Dividends Don't Lie , which focused on the Dividend-Yield Theory as a method of producing consistent gains in the stock market. Today, the approach of using the dividend yield to identify values in blue chip stocks still outperforms most investment methods on a risk-adjusted basis. Written by Kelley Wright, Managing Editor of Investment Quality Trends , with a new Foreword by Geraldine Weiss, this book teaches a value-based strategy to investing, one that uses a stock's dividend yield as the primary measure of value. Rather than emphasize the price cycles of a stock, the company's products, market strategy or other factors, this guide stresses dividend-yield patterns. With Dividends Still Don't Lie, you'll gain the confidence to make sophisticated stock market decisions and obtain solid value for your investment dollars.

Genres: Finance, Nonfiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 2010

Reviews

[Rafa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sensación agridulce. Repite muchos conceptos, hasta el punto de estar leyendo párrafos copiados y pegados de capítulos anteriores. Centrando el tiro, el libro no debería tener más de una docena de páginas.

La filosofía es fantástica, pero deja mucho a la imaginación y no llega a haber reglas cerradas (tratando a veces de predecir qué es lo que hará el mercado para decidir el porcentaje que inviertes, cuando lo realmente importante sería adoptar un enfoque bottom-up).

A modo de resumen, estos serían los criterios más objetivos para la selección de cotizadas:

- Empresas con una posición financiera sólida: relación entre activos y pasivos circulantes de dos a uno y deuda sobre el capital no superior al 50 %.

- Aumentos de dividendos en cinco de los últimos 12 años (incrementos medios del 10 %) y mejora de los beneficios en siete de los últimos 12 años.

- Al menos 25 años de dividendos ininterrumpidos, pero con un payout moderado (de menos del 50 % o 75 % en el caso de empresas de servicios públicos).

- Priorizar rentabilidad por dividendos sobre el PER (aunque el autor sugiere que esté cercano a 10).

- Un máximo de 25 compañías en cartera.

[Danielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a good example of another investment scheme that sounds like it should work, but um…the book was written in 2008, and most of the predictions have turned out wrong. I also happened to take out a trial subscription to the newsletter in 2020 and the top 10 picks have since done far worse than my index fund asset class portfolio (which the author is definitely not in favor of). Seriously, he’s so convincing I was ready to do some serious portfolio revision (and subscribe to the newsletter) until I ran actual results. Many investment gurus make far more off their books, newsletters, seminars, etc. than off their actual investments. The one nugget that’s worthwhile is that it’s a good idea to check dividends. Glad I didn’t rely on that, though, more than 10 years ago when I bought Apple—no dividends at all back then, but my gain is 1,215.26% I’ll take that over a 6% a year dividend.

[Hebep · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think it is a good intro for the dividend investment strategy, i like the take on blue chips and it was pretty easy to read.

[EvilWebBoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was already investing in S&P500 companies that have raised dividends for at least 10 consecutive years. Reinvesting the dividends to get more shares to eventually generate dividend income for retirement or to pass on to my wife or kids one day.
With the Dividend-Yield Theory it added a way to find an entry point to buy new stocks that are on my watchlist.
When the stock is near or above it's historical high yield I'll buy.
It forces me to buy low (when the yield is high the price is lower unless they raised the dividend significantly).
I don't sell when it gets near it's historical low because I'm holding long term.

[Willie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting approach of taking blue chip stocks and using the dividend yield as a valuation metric. Sell when the current div yield is below historical yields and buy when the current div yield is above historical yields for that stock.

The read, however, felt like a huge lead gen for their newsletter subscription. And according to their site, their strategy offers a 1% alpha on the S&P per year, which I felt was low for an active strategy.

The rationale behind the theory is sound. In practice, the marginal return with the extra work required didn't appeal to me.

[Flynn Ryker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somehow too much and also not enough

I have little experience in this book genre (personal finance/stocks), but I can’t help but feel there is better out there for literally every possible thing you want to glean from this book. Long story, but I stumbled here through a recommendation to read the OG Dividends Don't Lie: Finding Value in Blue-Chip Stocks by Weiss. A general search showed this (the unofficially endorsed sequel) as free for members of Audible. Moreover, it was only a 5 hour listen (or 2 if you crank it up).

I don’t know enough to appraise the content, but what I can say is that the book both didn’t go into the specifics enough (like when defining terms for this novice) and went way too into the specific when discussing the calculations for determining a ‘blue-chip’ stock. The problem here, is that the important content I took away could have been provided in a long pamphlet or (in 2024) a video essay. Obtaining this information without the visual aide also hindered the delivery, though I was able to follow the narrators descriptions because it’s redundancy and not that conceptually complicated on the surface.

Structure aside, the biggest problem with this book is that the specific recommendations of 2010 are probably no longer accurate. Furthermore, you’re probably better off paying for a software program or a firm to give you guidance than calculating any of this by hand, and understanding the equations (though nice in principle) hold less relevance to anyone not wanting to be a day trader.

[Firsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, so this was pretty basic but still pretty well put together. I tried not to base my opinions about my pre-existing knowledge when reviewing a book. And for us in Hungary, we are in a situation where we have no tax agreement with the US. So here dividends are taxed almost in a way that half of them are taken away. So we had to come up with something else other than focusing on dividends. But I don't rule out that eventually I would return to a dividend portfolio, not my entire portfolio, but some part of it. At least until a level is reached that it can generate a cash flow that I actually need, but not beyond. And this book explains how this strategy would be from all angles. It's hard to argue with, but it does involve a mentality that needs more trading than a simple buy and hold forever. Because it combines dividends with the normal old school value investing, where you buy stuff cheap and you actually plan to sell it eventually higher when it's overvalued and look for something new. In the investment newsletter that I help out with our work at, we call these the fallen angels. The book presents a relatively simple framework that we also used to use, which relies on picking a stock and looking at its historical dividend yield and creating a profile like what percentage constitutes as an overvaluation and an undervaluation. And you "trade" using the boundaries of that range near the top and the bottom, and it also explains how you would apply this to the entire market or indices.

[Y T · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first got to know of this book years ago when I was doing research on dividend investing. Never quite get to read it as I wasn't ready to spend money getting it from Amazon back then.

Finally technology caught up and I've got a chance to read it through my library's ebooks collection.

Learnt the simple thing about looking at dividend yield. The harder part would be plotting them to find out the range on the charts.

The value is primarily measured by price-earnings, price-book and dividend yield. I'm reading this book almost 11 years after it has been written, and of course the many hot stocks in the market today were not written about back then. Also the charts in there are outdated by today, with some of the stocks already been delisted.

Nevertheless, a good quick read and understanding of the key concepts to get one to explore further.

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still works

The name of the book is accurate. This process still works. It worked with the first book and it still works today. It may or may not match the S&P 500 every year but anyone who uses a mix of bonds with stocks also hasn't matched it in a while. This process does very well in bull markets and better during a bear like we are likely in right now. I'd highly recommend the book to anyone.

[Alaa Benhammida · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting to understand why some stocks never get appreciation over time but just fluctuates. It gives a methodology to determine when to buy and sell in the midterm fluctuations of dividend paying stocks.

It could have been summarized in 10 pages, the author spends a lot of time selling his method as a breathrough in stock forecasting.

[Furball404 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is riding on someone else's work - the content is okay - but you are better off just reading the original Dividends don't lie (1988) by Geraldine Weiss - this is basically an advertisement to their investment news letter

[Kah Wee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book with easy to follow concepts. Has a little too much promotion of a paid newsletter though

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little boring, but useful

[Subjuntivo Subjuntivo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh.

[Arturo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. One of the best, no nonsense investment books I've read.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Handwriting my notes for this one, but what is really striking to me is Geraldine weiss' claim (i agree with her) that the financial media outlets are being paid by companies (under the table of course) to run stories showing their companies as a positive investment. She further claims the posted financials of companies are highly manipulated and hard to prove. This was the 1980s-90s....think how badly things are manipulated now (2025)! What you can't manipulate is a dividend payment. Being able to pay your shareholders particularly at an increasing rate proves a company's financial health.

Finally a Dividend book that helps determine WHEN it is a good (undervalued) time to buy. They go into detail with charts and cycles....not just the common sense "buy low" mantra

Obviously the Dividend Yield is contingent in a big part to the share price. Other investors seem to ignore this. Overpaying is a big problem you can avoid by finding high Dividend Yields

[Sanuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

The idea of this book is very simple. Buy shares of blue chip companies that increase its dividend every year for many years at an historical high dividend yield. Sell them when their dividend yield is near their historical high. This is a good way to buy good value shares with high yield. A better chance of preserving capital while getting the best yield. Simple idea but a good one. I also like some historical facts about the stock market and the importance of avoiding buying when the stock market is overvalue as it is right now.

[Henry]

In my experience, most investors in dividend stocks are investing for purposes of creating a growing stream of dividend income, and that is what I thought this book was about. But it’s really not. Really, it’s a technical trading book. (I’m not sure the author would agree - maybe he would say it’s really a valuation book. My own opinion, though, is that it is really all about price signals.) That’s not the author’s fault, it’s mine, but I honestly didn’t get anything out of this for my own investing style.

[Jason Vanzin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book definitely explains why the dividend yield strategy is a great way to find value stocks and a great way to earn a consistent and long term return. Unfortunately, I think the author was telling you just enough to get you interested in his newsletter. Short of buying his newsletter, I was left wonder how to dig up all the data needed to analyze stocks as outlined in the book.

[Jonatan Sotelo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me lo leí en pocos días. Tremendo libro! Para aquellos que nos interesan los dividendos dentro del mercado bursatil este libro te brinda una estrategia integral de inversión basando la valoración de la empresa en el rendimiento histórico de dividendos.

Muy fácil de leer. Muy buenos ejemplos. Gráficos muy utiles.

Será de ahora en más una fuente de consulta diaria.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written and a fairly easy read. Author has a good knowledge of dividend stocks and did a good job of explaining his method of finding value in dividend paying stocks.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read format with practical advise. The strategies have held water over time and seem solid going forward.

[Manolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I'd really give it 3 and 1/2 stars.
But I also think that I'll have to read it again posting more attention to some chapters.
A good reading in any case and some good advices.