Starting Over: The 15-Stock Dividend Portfolio My Own Rules Would Build

TOLL+M disciplined 15-stock build: 15 holdings, average forward yield >=3%, one name per sleeve, no manager overrides

Toll-road core via EPD and WMB - EPD yields ~6%, 27-year increase streak, DCF coverage >1.6x; WMB grows faster but has a 2016 cut scar

Real-asset income engines: UNP (rail oligopoly), CME (exchanges), LMT (defense, payout mid-60s, long backlog), VICI and Realty Income - O has 30+ years of raises

Framework fills gaps: NextEra - dividend +10% last year, payout ~40%; PepsiCo - yield >4% and 50+ years of raises; TXN and AbbVie meet TOLL+M thresholds

Investor playbook: one-per-sector diversification, target >=3% avg forward yield, score holdings with TOLL+M, avoid concentration, add sleeves for higher income or themes

A reader gave me this idea, and I wish I had thought of it myself.

My portfolio is weird to some people. It is 37% concentrated in Permian land and royalty names. My top three positions are close to 40% of the book. I own zero technology, zero healthcare, zero consumer staples, and zero utilities. It works for me, and I have written many times about why. But it is not a portfolio I would hand to a normal dividend investor and tell them to copy, at least not with these weightings. The individual picks travel fine. The concentration does not.

So the reader asked a sharper question. What would the same brain build if it were not allowed to be me?

That is this article. I took my own framework, kept every rule I use to judge a business, and stripped out the one thing that makes my real book strange, which is my personal risk tolerance. What comes out is a 15-stock dividend-growth portfolio that I think is genuinely investable for someone building retirement income. It is the disciplined version of my process. It is what happens when the system picks the names, and I am not allowed to overrule it.

I will be honest. I was curious about the result too.

Let me show you how it came together, and where the framework strains when you force it to behave.

Starting Over: The 15-Stock Dividend Portfolio My Own Rules Would Build

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