olyveoil,
I don't come to this website very often anymore for the same reasons that you are now discovering. Its pointless to try and have a discussion on here about dividend investing. Don't waste your time. ....
Why would a discussion comparing the performance of different investing strategies be a pointless waste of time?
A few comments.
All these historical data points, graphs, and so on is an illusion. People do not get the benchmark returns even if they put 100% into the most holly of hollies VTI ...
Why wouldn't they get the same returns as published? How is it an illusion? Those returns are net of fees. Not net of taxes obviously, but that affects any taxable account, and one can expect lower taxes from an investment with lower distributions anyhow, which could favor VTI over a div-sector.
Maybe you mean because we are also withdrawing from that portfolio? See below.
... It is not monolithic such as "put it all into VTI or you suck". ...
I think this discussion would go better if you didn't characterize posters as saying things like
"put it all into VTI or you suck". Some us are just presenting information, it's not helpful to describe that as being antagonistic. As I said earlier, don't shoot the messenger.
That said, I will attempt to productively discuss your points:
... I have said this many many many times on this message board, and I will say it again. Investing for dividends is a withdrawal strategy.
...
People that attack dividend investing by making stock selection comparison completely miss the point of dividend investing which is a WITHDRAWAL STRATEGY.
The correct comparison to make is dividend investing vs the 4% rule, for example.
Did you notice that in the data I provided, I included a 3.5% inflation adjusted withdrawal in the analysis? It's apples-apples, each investor gets the same annual dollars in withdrawals. And the data shows that the div-paying sector does not perform better on a risk adjusted basis.
So can you explain what makes a div-focused WITHDRAWAL STRATEGY attractive? Why would an investor prefer this strategy, when (at least in our limited data set) they would likely have less money in their portfolio after years of using this strategy? Isn't that a risk to future portfolio survivability?
I'm aware that some of the div-sector proponents seem to think "just living off dividends" is simpler, or some other advantage? Can you show us how this works in real life, with a div sector fund (for ease of management and better diversification than a handful of individual stocks)? I ask, because I just don't understand how a retiree would match their spending with the distributions? The distributions seem to vary over time. What do they do with any excess or shortfall? So how exactly is this implemented to provide an advantage and/or simplification?
As a point of reference, it seems pretty easy for a balanced VTI/BND portfolio investor. That portfolio will likely kick off less than a typical conservative 3.5% withdrawal rate, so the WITHDRAWAL STRATEGY is take the divs, and at year-end, or quarterly, or on an as as-needed basis (whatever your preference, makes no real difference), sell off BND and/or VTI, based on their weightings to get you towards your desired AA (or just do whatever, portfolio success isn't really very sensitive to mid-range AA anyhow).
So let's compare WITHDRAWAL STRATEGIES then.
-ERD50