Dog

'Dog' is named as one of the quadrants of the Boston Consultancy Group (BCG) matrix which has a small market share in a mature industry. The BCG growth share matrix was developed to manage different categories of business units in the company itself.

This term is used to attribute a stock which has been a marked underperformer compared to the benchmark indices for a longer period of time. In most cases we have seen that dog operates in a mature industry and if it is not bringing sustained cash flows, the management can consider selling the business unit and use the cash to invest in areas where returns are positive. If the company does not see a potential in the business unit which is referred to as dog, it will not allocate more cash to build the product to turn it into a Star or a Cash cow, both terms used in BCG matrix for different business units.