There’s a much better way to collect dividends than following the “Dogs of the Dow” strategy of automatically buying stocks with the highest yields.

This is important to keep in mind at any time, but especially now, at the end of the year.

Dogs of the Dow investors are preparing to rebalance their portfolio into the 10 highest-yielding stocks within the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA. It is perhaps the most famous of Wall Street’s dividend-stock strategies.