Strategy 1. The “Dogs of the Dow” This is one of the most popular “mechanical” investing techniques. The Dogs technique takes all of the research, strategy, and guesswork out of investing. In fact, your total time required amounts to about an hour each year.
As goofy as that sounds, this technique has been around since the early 1990s when Michael O’Higgins introduced it in a book. Here’s how it works.
Once each year, you look at the 30 stocks in the Dow and pick the 10 with the highest dividend yield. A high dividend yield may indicate the stock is under-priced and due to rally according to the Dog theory.
Strategy 2. "Short the Entire DJIA" Feeling Bearish on the Dow? Then buy a dog. DOG is the ticker symbol for a new ETF called Short Dow30 ProShares. DOG started trading on June 21, 2006. This ETF allows you to short the entire Dow Jones Industrial Average and you would be up 2% if the Dow Jones were to go down 2%. One advantage of buying this ETF versus other shorting strategies is you don't have to put up margin which is required in most shorting strategies. If the DJIA goes higher the DOG trades lower and vice versa.
Strategy 3. "Still Bullish on the DJIA"? Buy the Dow 30: Since there are 30 stocks in the Dow, it is definitely possible to own too many of them. The more Dow stocks owned, the more it makes sense to just buy the Diamonds Trust exchange-traded fund ticker symbol DIA, which saves money on commissions and eliminates a great deal of homework.