Dogs Of The Dow.

CNBC noted an interesting factoid yesterday. If you take these four components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average: American Express {AXP}, Bank of America {BAC}, Citigroup {C} and General Motors {GM} and assume they go to zero then the Dow would only lose 350 points from where it stood yesterday. Assuming they meant yesterday's open that would mean the Dow would be vulnerable to approximately a 4% loss if that happened all at one time. If for instance it happened today the Dow would still be above it's November lows.

Of course what isn't mentioned is what would happen to the Dow if these four names were replaced in the index.

So just for the heck of it. I thought I'd monitor these stocks over the next year to see how they would work from these levels in a portfolio. Sort of a "Dogs of the Dow Strategy". We'll use yesterday's close as the start date.

AXP 16.01

BAC 5.73

C 3.06

GM 3.21

DJIA 8,224

*Long certain legacy positions in C for certain accounts. Long ETFs related to the Dow Jones Industrial Average.