Michael Clarfeld from ClearBridge Investments wants you to buy overlooked gems. Gems. As if stocks trade on the Mohs hardness scale.
The term "overlooked" assumes the market missed something. It didn't. Everyone saw these stocks. They looked at the price. They said no thanks. That's not overlooked. That's called losing.
Clarfeld specializes in dividends, which means he gets paid to tell retirees to buy companies that can't figure out what else to do with cash. Growth? Innovation? No. Here's seventy-three cents per share. Twice a year. Don't spend it all on Werther's Originals.
Attractive income. There's the phrase that does the heavy lifting. Attractive compared to what? A savings account? A mattress? The yield on your nephew's lemonade stand? These words mean everything and nothing, which makes them perfect for a headline designed to separate you from your money.
The real beauty is the specialist label. You know what a dividend specialist is? Someone who failed at picking stocks that go up. So they pivoted. Now they pick stocks that pay you to hold them while they go sideways for a decade. It's the participation trophy of asset management.
Retail traders will read this and think they found alpha. They'll buy in Wednesday. By Friday they'll be down two percent, clutching their quarterly dividend estimate like it's a life raft. That seventy-three cents suddenly needs to cover a four-dollar loss. Math gets hard when you're special.
ClearBridge manages other people's money, which means Clarfeld's compensation doesn't depend on whether these gems actually shine. It depends on assets under management. He could recommend a bag of wet gravel and still collect fees. The incentives write the headlines.
You want overlooked? Try a mirror.
Photo by Call Me Fred on Unsplash
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