Whitehaven Coal Ltd (ASX: WHC) shares are down 0.7% in late morning trade on Friday.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) coal stock closed yesterday trading for $6.80 per share. Shares are currently swapping hands for $6.76.
As you can see on the chart below, despite today's dip, Whitehaven shares remain up an impressive 39% over the past 12 months.
Of course, investors who've held the stock for the past 12 months will have realised even better returns than this.
That's because the above chart doesn't include the coal miner's two fully franked dividends.
What kind of dividends did the ASX 200 coal share pay?
On the back of record profits, fuelled by surging coal prices, the miner rewarded shareholders with a record-high final and record-high interim dividend.
Whitehaven shares delivered a final dividend of 40 cents per share on 16 September. If you owned shares you'll have seen the interim dividend of 32 cents per share land in your bank account on 10 March.
That works out to a total of 72 cents per share in passive income over the 12 months.
At the current share price that equates to a trailing yield of 10.7%.
That's a healthy yield, to be sure.
But some investors will be earning a lot higher dividend yield than that.
What's this about a 16% dividend yield from Whitehaven shares?
As long-term investors, it's generally wise to avoid trying to time the market in an effort to buy at the lows and sell at the highs. It's really hard to get it right once, let alone with any kind of consistency.
With that said, when you do manage to get the timing right – through good luck or perhaps good investment advice – it can really help turbocharge your returns.
6 July represented one such opportunity to boost your returns off Whitehaven shares.
In intraday trading on 6 June, the ASX 200 coal miner was trading for as little as $4.52 per share. And there was plenty of trading going on that day, with some 12.3 million shares changing hands, according to data from CommSec.
Investors who snapped up shares at those lows would have been eligible for both dividends.
And at that price, they'd be earning a whopping 15.9% dividend yield, with some potential tax benefits from those franking credits.
Atop that welcome passive income, Whitehaven shares have also gained 50% since those 6 July lows.
