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Future Dividends, Coupons, and Principal

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Your purchasing power is your lifeblood in retirement. On my office credenza is The Theory of Investment Value by John Burr Williams, first published in 1937. Chapter five is titled “Evaluation by the Rule of Present Worth, Section I. Future Dividends, Coupons, and Principal.” Burr writes:

[D]ividends, or coupons and principal, must be adjusted for expected changes in the purchasing power of money. The purchase of a stock or bond, like other transactions which give rise to the phenomenon of interest, represents the exchange of present goods for future goods—dividends, or coupons and principal, in this case being the claim on future goods. To appraise the investment value, then, it is necessary to estimate the future payments. The annuity of payments, adjusted for changes in the value of money itself, may then be discounted at the pure interest rate demanded by the investor.

This month, Moody’s downgraded Illinois’s state debt from A1 to A2, thereby increasing its borrowing costs on $800 million in 10-year general obligation bonds by 110 basis points to 3.1%. You have to wonder whether you’d like to partner with this state, or any state for that matter. Illinois bondholders who need to raise cash in a hurry may not like what rising interest rates do to their principal value.

For stocks, getting a juicy dividend is one thing; seeing that stock pay you the dividend year in and year out is another. Burr would ask, is there leverage being used to prop it up? Is the payout ratio sustainable? What is the government risk? All of these questions were as relevant in 1937 as they are today.

Last week, headline inflation came in at 3.0%, with food up to 4.7% and energy down to 6.6%. If inflation really kicks in, those juicy dividends may not have much cash left in the tank to keep pace. Bond coupons may be negative in real terms if swallowed up by inflation. Having some flexibility to work the yield curve will come in handy. And dividends, coupons, and principal must be adjusted for expected changes in the purchasing power of money.

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E.J. Smith

Editor-in-Chief
E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com.