High returns for firm believers

A ‘rollercoaster’ time, maybe, but faith in high dividend yielding stocks remains strong since 2003.

The year 2003 was a turbulent one for investors in European equities. The Iraq war, and concerns about geopolitical risks, weighed heavily on the markets in the first few months of the year. Between the beginning of 2003 and 12 March, the MSCI Europe index lost nearly 20 per cent of its value. It then proceeded to recoup most of those losses in the following two months, and ended the year up nearly 16 per cent. A bit of a roller-coaster ride!

As was the case with 2001 and 2002, the divergence in performance between the best and worst performing stocks was large. However, in 2003 it was the high beta end of the market that performed the best.