How to Increase Shareholder Return Today
The Wall Street Journal ran an article yesterday titled Top U.S. Firms Are Cash-Rich Abroad, Cash-Poor at Home. The piece pointed out that American companies are holding record amounts of cash, but much of it is overseas. By example, “Emerson Electric Co. has $2 billion of cash in the bank. But this... Read the full story
Why Stocks Go Up
Stocks have been wild lately. They swing up; they swing down. Listen to the boys and girls on CNBC and you hear, “You bet this market’s got some legs—it should continue up.” Then the next morning Spain has trouble selling bonds, and stocks fall 100 points at the open. You could have had a better... Read the full story
Income Investors: Be Not Afraid
The Problem Without congressional action the Bush tax cuts will expire in 2013. Expiration would lead to higher income taxes for all brackets, and lead to dividends being taxed at marginal income tax rates for middle-and upper-income filers. The potential for higher income tax rates on dividends is scaring... Read the full story
50% Tax on Dividends
Determining your income needs for retirement is no easy task. In terms of enjoyment, it is right up there with getting a root canal and filing your taxes. And at least with tax returns, there’s hope of a refund when you’re done. Not so with retirement budgeting. Once you have some figures laid out... Read the full story
Dividend Increases
According to Standard & Poor’s, 2011 is setting up to be an excellent year for dividend increases. To date, at least 150 companies have increased their dividends. And that’s with less than half of the year gone by. That’s a solid pace, considering that 256 companies increased their dividends... Read the full story
The Dividend Mandate
Income investors can’t help but be discouraged by the current state of affairs. T-bills yield 0.10%, and two-year Treasury notes yield 0.62%. Albert Einstein described compound interest as the greatest mathematical discovery of all time, but compounding is not so great when interest rates are at 0.1%.... Read the full story
A Treasure Trove for Dividend Investors
As many of you know, I invest exclusively in dividend-paying stocks, and I advise the same for my strategy report subscribers. If a company does not pay a dividend, I won’t even consider it. At my family investment company, our common stock portfolios are invested exclusively in dividend-paying stocks.... Read the full story
Gold is at $1,400
Don’t tell me there is no inflation, the price of gold has topped $1,400/ounce. The Dow Jones Industrials are up year-to-date and over the past three years. But even so, Gold has beaten the DJIA Total Return (i.e. dividends included) handily as shown in my two charts. Make sure you are not caught... Read the full story
They’ll Wonder How You Live So Well
The businesses of the top 10 companies in the Vanguard Dividend Achievers fund could easily be part of your Saturday morning errands, especially if the kids and family are visiting. You could start the morning by leaving the house with a can of Diet Pepsi, stop by a Chevron station to fill up the tank,... Read the full story
Lower Portfolio Risk to Boost Return
Do you know the difference between total return and investor return? Most investors are familiar with the concept of total return. The total return of a fund is simply the sum of the capital and income return of a fund over a certain holding period. The total return of a fund of course assumes a buy-and-hold... Read the full story
