10-08-2013, 10:14 PM
I don't think that YOC is useless, and I do keep track of it for my purchases. It is a reasonable way to keep score, if nothing else. But I agree with most of the folks here that it is easy to be misled by it, and that it should not be used to inform new decisions about a position.
But if I understand what you are saying here, cannew, you are not really talking about yield on cost, as typically defined (current dividend divided by purchase price). It is unclear to me from your posts if you are including in your assessment capital gains, but assuming so, then I think you are really talking about a variant of total return, which I suspect most here would agree is a very useful metric. You just happen to label it something close to "yield on cost."
But if I understand what you are saying here, cannew, you are not really talking about yield on cost, as typically defined (current dividend divided by purchase price). It is unclear to me from your posts if you are including in your assessment capital gains, but assuming so, then I think you are really talking about a variant of total return, which I suspect most here would agree is a very useful metric. You just happen to label it something close to "yield on cost."