Ten Leading Chinese Stocks

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The Dow Jones BRIC China 15 Index represents the “15 leading companies whose primary operations are in mainland China but whose stocks trade on the exchanges of Hong Kong and the U.S. Eligible stocks include H shares, ADRs/ADSs and U.S.-listed only stocks”.

The stocks in this index are selected based on liquidity and size.The dividend yield of this index is 17.94% as of November 30, 2009. Financials represent about 40% of this index.
Note: Data calculated in USD.

The Top 10 Components of the Dow Jones BRIC China 15 Index are:

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.
China Construction Bank Corp. (OTC: CICHY)
China Life Insurance Co. Ltd. (LFC)
Bank of China Ltd. (OTC: BACHY)
PetroChina Co. Ltd. (PTR)
China Shenhua Energy Co. Ltd. (OTC: CSUAY)
China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (SNP)
Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. of China Ltd. (OTC: PNGAY)
China Merchants Bank Co. Ltd. H (OTC: CIHKF)
Bank of Communications Co. Ltd

PetroChina, China Life Insurance and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp are the only stocks that trade on the New York Stock Exchange. PetroChina is a long-term growth stock. PetroChina bought a 45% stake in Singapore Petroleum Co. earlier this year.

Components of the Dow Jones High Yield Select 10 Index

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The Dow Jones High Yield Select 10 Index measures the top ten companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average based on indicated annual dividend yield.

The key features of this index:

  • Components are equal-dollar weighted.
  • The index is rebalanced annually. Changes to the Dow Jones Industrial Average during the course of the year are not reflected until the next review.

The Dividend Yield of the index as of November 20th, 2009 is 3.20%.

The Components of the Dow Jones High Yield Select 10 Index and their Current Dividend Yields are listed below:

1.JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)
Current Dividend Yield = 0.49%

2.Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK)
Current Dividend Yield = 4.06%

3.E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co.(DD)
Current Dividend Yield = 5.15%

4.Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ)
Current Dividend Yield = 5.79%

5.AT&T Inc. (T)
Current Dividend Yield = 6.15%

6.Kraft Foods Inc.(KFT)
Current Dividend Yield = 4.29%

7.Pfizer Inc. (PFE)
Current Dividend Yield = 3.93%

8.General Electric Co. (GE)
Current Dividend Yield = 2.57%

9.Bank of America Corp. (BAC)
Current Dividend Yield = 0.27%

10.Alcoa Inc.(AA)
Current Dividend Yield = 0.82%

Alcoa, Bank of America, GE and JPMorgan Chase have very low yields. They are included in this index since the index is re-balanced annually in December.

A Review of Canadian Dividend ETF

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One of the ETFs that tracks the performance of top Canadian dividend stocks is The Claymore S&P/TSX Canadian Dividend ETF which trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) with ticker CDZ. This ETF replicates the performance of S&P/TSX Canadian Dividend Aristocrats Index.

A company should satisfy the following criteria to become a member of the S&P/TSX Canadian Dividend Aristocrats Index:

  1. The company’s common stock or income trust must be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and must be a member of the S&P Canada Broad Market Index
  2. The company should have raised ordinary cash dividends every year for at least five consecutive years
  3. The float-adjusted market capitalization of the security is at least C$ 300M

The ETF has an asset base of $158M and the management fee is 0.60%. Distributions, if any, are done monthly. The fund has a heavy concentration in financials which accounts for about 46% of the portfolio. There are 70 companies in the portfolio with representation from the banking, energy, utility, materials, consumer discretionary and other sectors. The current yield is 5.49%. Note: All data is based on Canadian $.

To Download the constituents of the Claymore S&P/TSX Canadian Dividend ETF in Excel click here.

To download the latest FactSheet click here.

28 Foreign Electric Utilities Listed on the OTC Markets

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Some of the foreign electric utility companies trading on the OTC markets have high dividend yields.  A few of the excellent electric utilities in this group include  E.ON AG (OTC: EONGY) of Germany, Iberdrola (OTC: IBDRY) of Spain, Energias De Portugal (OTC: EDPFY)  of Portugal and Scottish and Southern Energy Plc (OTC: SSEZY) of UK. The current dividend yields of these stocks are listed below:

E.ON AG: 4.96%

Iberdrola: 4.46%

Energias De Portugal: 4.31%

Scottish and Southern Energy Plc: 8.19%

The Complete List of Foreign Electric Utilities listed on the OTC exchanges are shown below:

[TABLE=258]

It must noted that many of these stocks are lightly traded on a daily basis and may not be suitable for all investors.

The World’s Top 100 Non-Financial Trans-National Companies Ranked by Foreign Assets

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Each year the  United Nations Conference on Trade And Development (UNCTAD) publishes the World Investment Report. The 2009 report is a formidable document with over 300 pages and was published in July.

Growth in the developed markets is projected to be lackluster next year. But emerging markets are expected to continue to have higher growth like they have been experiencing in the past few years. Emerging market countries like China, Brazil, India, Russia, Chile, Malaysia, Colombia, etc. were largely unaffected by the credit crisis and the recession that impacted the developed world in 2008 and most of this year.One way for investors to cash in on the strong growth in emerging markets is to select companies in those markets. However that may not suit all investors as  it is time consuming to do research and the risks involved may be hard to stomach. As a result, some investors stick with companies that they are already familiar with and choose those that generate a higher portion of their earnings from abroad. For example, many U.S. giants like Procter & Gamble(PG), Coca Cola (KO), Walmart (WMT) etc. have extremely strong overseas presence and accordingly significant sales and revenues from those markets in certain segments.

The World Investment Report 2009 lists The World’s Top 100 Non-Financial Trans-National Companies (TNCs) Ranked by Foreign Assets, 2007. This list can be used to identify top companies that high exposures to foreign markets. For example, US-based General Electric (GE) is ranked number one in terms of foreign assets held  and its TNI percentage is 51.4%. “TNI, the Transnationlity Index, is calculated as the average of the following three ratios: foreign assets to total assets, foreign sales to total sales and foreign
employment to total employment.” GE’s total sales in 2007 was $172B out of which more than 50% ($86B+) came from foreign countries. Similarly GE had more employees in foreign countries than in the US. While in the domestic market, GE is nowadays considered as a financial services company with flat growth, in foreign countries GE is known more for its investment in manufacturing operations.

The World’s Top 10 Non-Financial TNCs, Ranked by Foreign Assets 2007  are:

1. General Electric (GE)
2. Vodafone plc (VOD)
3. Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B)
4. British Petroleum Company Plc (BP)
5. ExxonMobil (XOM)
6. Toyota Motor (TM)
7. Total (TOT)
8. Electricité De France (OTC: ECIFF)
9. Ford Motor Company (F)
10.E.ON AG (OTC: EONGY)

Note:

1. The rankings are based on 2007 data since that was the latest full year data available when UNCTAD compiled this report. However the rankings must still be valid as most of these companies have expanded their overseas operations since then.

2. Please note that these rankings are based on not just emerging markets but entire foreign assets. They include all assets outside of home country. Similarly GE’s  foreign sales  numbers include all sales outside of the U.S.

The full listing of the top 100 companies can be found here.