Since writing the essay "Retirement Strategy - Part I" on September 18, 2009, I have continued to receive a steady stream of emails from subscribers seeking a combination of safety, capital appreciation and current income. In this regard, I tested an old favorite strategy of mine, Vector + Vector.

Alas, I found that the RS requirement was too stringent to find enough stocks under current market conditions, so I lowered the RS requirement from 1.5 to 1.25. Indeed, this adjustment did allow the search to return more stocks, but the dividend yields were pretty skimpy. So I adjusted the search again to find only optionable stocks, thinking that I could generate current income by selling Covered Calls. I named the new strategy "High VST + YSG Stocks," and put it into a new strategy group in the UniSearch Tool called Strategies - Retirement.

The following week, September 25, 2009, I created another search which was designed to find reasonably safe stocks with high dividend yields. I called it "High Yield 2x10s" and put it into the Strategies - Retirement Group in UniSearch. The top 10 stocks found by this search on September 25, 2009 had an average dividend yield of 13.64%.

On October 2, 2009, I created a third search, called "Optionable 2x4s," which aimed to find optionable stocks paying dividends of at least $2.00 per share and yielding at least 4%. This search was also placed into the Strategies - Retirement folder in UniSearch.

Finally, on October 9, 2009, I wrote an essay called, "Managing Your Retirement Stocks," which explained and illustrated how one might go about capturing both the dividend and the option premium. Although I thought I had written all that I needed to on the subject, the e-mails kept coming in, especially in regard to bond funds. So I wrote an essay on October 16, 2009 called, "Relatively Safe Bond Funds Paying 6%."

But the emails keep coming in. So what else can I do? How about trying to combine some of our bottom fishing ideas along with capturing high dividend yields? How could we do this? Well let's find some of the biggest, safest stocks that have been beaten down in price and still pay juicy dividends. Hmm, our Blue Chip Bargains strategies find the biggest, safest stocks and they're nearly all optionable. But how can we find those with the highest dividend yields?

Simple. Just sort by DY Desc.

Hey, that works pretty well, but where does the bottom fishing part come into play? Well dividend yields go up when prices go down, so if you sort by DY Desc., you automatically find stocks that have gone down in price. It's a technique used by many money managers. Yes, but what about the quality of the dividends? Are they safe? Well let's sort by YSG Desc. Hey, that works even better, but I still want to do a little better job of bottom fishing. How should I do that? Try sorting by the YSG/CI Desc. That ought to do it.

Wow! I don't believe what I'm looking at - a 95.47% gain since March 10, 2009 with 100% winners and a 5.17% dividend yield. I think I've found a Retirement - Strategies - Blue Chip Bonanzas.

Blue Chip Bonanzas.
If you're interested in building a portfolio that has it all: safety, capital appreciation, above average dividend yields with optionable stocks and low portfolio turnover, join Mr. Steve Chappell, Director of Educational Services, at the VectorVest University to see this week's wonderful "Strategy of the Week" presentation: "Blue Chip Bonanzas."