If you’re looking to capture yields, but often fall flat on your face when it comes to researching and picking stocks, then there’s a simple technique you should learn.

#-ad_banner-#Among the many investing strategies is a perennial one that offers investors solid dividend yields and a history of proven returns — often beating the overall market.

It is called “Dogs of the Dow.”

This is the process of investing in the 10 highest-yielding stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and holding them for one year.

Since price drops create higher yields, these are often the worst performing companies in the index — hence the nomenclature “Dogs.” The idea is that these market laggards will turn around in the following year, resulting in modest, reliable gains.

Investors who followed this strategy in 2014 have seen 12.6% returns year to date. To put this in context, the Dogs outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s overall 11.1% total return, but were shy of the S&P 500’s 15%.

Investing doesn’t get much more simplistic than this strategy.

In fact, the Dogs of the Dow have held up over time. Over the past 15 years, the Dogs returned 146%, handily outperforming DJIA’s 124% and the S&P 500’s 88% over the same time period.

To be sure, this method of investing has come under scrutiny recently and rightfully so.

Over the past 10 years, the S&P 500 has outperformed the dogs by 14%. That begs the question, why did the Dogs crush the market over 15 years, but not 10?

There are a few key reasons.

First, the S&P 500 has been on a tear in the past decade. It set 53 all-time high records this year alone. It is hard for anything to best the market when it is performing so well.

The second reason is one that my colleagues and I have written about extensively over the past few months. Companies have shifted away from rewarding shareholders with dividend increases and toward the act of repurchasing outstanding shares.

From 2009 through the first half of this year, the largest 500 companies in America increased buyback spending by 245%, but have grown dividend payouts only 60%, according to Standard & Poor’s research.

Repurchasing shares seems to have become a corporate fad — by buying back shares, a company’s earnings per share are inflated. This is a powerful tool to increase shareholder value, but companies can also use it to cover up stagnant or falling revenues. If you’d like to read further on buybacks, check this out.

Nonetheless, the Dogs have proven to be an effective investing strategy, returning an average 8.99% a year since 2001, according to research by Bespoke Investment Group. When share repurchases fall out of style, dividends will once again be the primary vehicle with which companies reward shareholders.

Even after considering these factors, the Dogs of the Dow strategy is worth consideration, especially for investors looking for a simple solution to build out a portfolio.

So with all this in mind, here are the companies that make the cut for 2015’s Dogs of the Dow:

While this strategy is unlikely to give you Buffett-like returns, by investing in these 10 firms, the hard work of choosing stocks is made simple, and on average, you will see performance in line with, if not outperforming, the DJIA and S&P 500. The list of dogs above carries an average yield of 3.6%, compared to 2.2% and 1.9% for the DJIA and S&P 500, respectively.

Risks To Consider: Again, companies aren’t increasing dividends like they used to. Buybacks are the name of the game for the foreseeable future. On a broader note, question everything, do your due diligence and remember that there are no guarantees in life or investing — that applies to the Dogs strategy as well.

Action To Take –> Build an equally-weighted portfolio of the 10 companies listed in the table above and hold them for a year. The tradition is to do this at the start of the New Year, but the strategy holds up just as well if started any other day of the year.

If you’re looking for more simple ways to earn even bigger dividend checks, then you have to check out my colleague’s latest presentation. In short, for the past few years our resident income expert has been using a low-risk strategy to earn more than $65,000 in dividend paychecks. And at last count, she’s currently earning about $1,400 a month. Her strategy has been so successful that she was recently spoke in front of a live audience at St. Edwards University. To watch the exclusive video of her talk and learn more about her strategy, click here.