In “The Dividend Connection: How Dividends Create Value in the Stock Market,” the 1995 book she co-wrote with her son Gregory, Ms. Weiss, explains that earnings “may be hidden or obscured behind vague accounting terms such as cash flow, depreciation, or stock reserves” and distorted by taxes.
“A smart accountant,” she claimed, “can make profits look good or not so good,” and companies that buy back their shares instead of paying dividends often overpay for them.
The newsletter’s record from its inception in 1966, and continuing Mrs. Weiss’s method of recommendations after retirement, wasn’t flashy, but it was always worth the effort. It produced an average annual stock market gain of 11.8 percent from 1986 to early 2022, including economic downturns, according to Mark J. Hulbert, founder of The Hulbert Financial Digest, a newsletter review service, compared with an 11 percent gain, including dividends, for the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index, the broadest measure of the US stock market.
Once a year, the service compiles a list of favorite stocks, which it calls the Lucky 13. “It’s a method that works, has proven to be steadfast and simple,” said Mr Hulbert, adding that the still-popular newsletter has one of the longest tenures in the company. “They make more money in the market, with less risk,” he said.
Geraldine Sylvia Schmulowitz, better known as Gerry, was born in San Francisco on March 16, 1926. Her father, Alvin, was a real estate agent; her mother, Sylvia, was a housewife. Her father changed the family name to Small after Geraldine faced anti-Semitism at school. “That was a big change in my life,” she says.
