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
Need Yield?
Do you invest in stocks for income? Is your portfolio focused primarily on U.S. stocks? If so, you might consider diversifying globally. The dividend yield on the U.S. stock market is one of the lowest yields in the world. In the chart below, I show the yields of 23 of the world’s major stock markets.... Read the full story
How Many Utilities are in Your Portfolio?
A powerful relative strength rally in utilities stocks is underway. The S&P 500 Utilities Index has outperformed the S&P 500 index by 12.5% since early April. Investors are bidding up high yielding utilities stocks in search of yield. Read More →
A Simple Strategy for Stock Market Success
For over four decades I have used a simple strategy to successfully invest in the stock market. I invest exclusively in dividend paying stocks. I especially favor those with high yields, a strong balance sheet, and a history of annual dividend hikes. This strategy is simple, but it works. Historically,... Read the full story
A 500% Return in High-Yielders
Do you invest in master limited partnerships (MLPs)? MLPs are publicly traded limited partnerships. They combine the tax benefits of a limited partnership with the liquidity of a publicly traded security. MLPs pay no entity-level tax. They are pass-through entities. MLP unit holders are allocated a proportionate... Read the full story
