The Dogs of the Dow bridge gap with U.S. high-yield debt

Buying this year’s highest-yielding stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, or the “dogs of the Dow,” might be almost as rewarding for income-oriented investors as favoring high-yield bonds. A comparison between the Dow Jones High Yield Select 10 Index, a proxy for the dogs, and the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Corporate High Yield Index shows as much. 

Last week, the dividend yield on the Dow Jones indicator came within 0.2 percentage point of equaling the Bloomberg Barclays yield. The spread was the narrowest since at least 2002, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.