#300~ Top 10 Terrible Dividend Trades 😬 (And What I Learned)

First up is Wells Fargo ticker WFC, where we sold five shares at $40 and 70 cents in April of 2021.

And today it's at $75.64.

So with dividends reinvested, I missed out on about $210 and it outperformed the S&P by about 17% over that same period.

We sold Wells Fargo because they had cut the dividend a few times and we're still cleaning up the 2016 fake account scandal and I didn't dig in and I sold on some headlines.

And headline news is rarely new information because the market already knew about the scandal and the dividend cuts and it was priced

in.

So selling on some minor news that everyone already knows is the definition of selling low and the lazy version of me would have held and let the new CEO clean it up.

Number nine is 3M ticker MMM where I sold 10 shares at $100 and today it's at $143.

So I missed out on about $529 with dividends reinvested and it also beat the S&P by 14% since selling.

Now, I sold 3M because of the talc lawsuits, the PFAS forever chemical settlements, and the spinoff of the healthcare business as Solventum.

Plus, I remembered Warren Buffett's line about turnarounds seldom turning, so I bailed.

But what actually happened was a new CEO, Bill Brown, took over in May of 2024 with a real plan, and the stock has run hard since then.

Now, Warren Buffett is right that most turnarounds fail, but most certainly isn't all.

And sometimes a 120-year-old company with strong brands and real cash flow just needs new leadership and time.

So I sold right before the turn started.

And in this situation, Lazy would have beaten Clever.