Thursday, August 30, 2012

Delayed Satisfaction Can Be Profitable

I have a confession.  This confession causes me to be made fun of by friends, something that I think causes my wife some embarrassment, and something that I'm oddly proud of.  I am a flip-phone owner.  And this isn't some new flip-phone (assuming they still make them), no, this is the same phone I have owned since 2006.  I love this phone.  It's small so it fits nicely in my pocket, the battery will still outlast most smartphones, and I don't have to have a data plan in order to use it.  And I'll be honest, that last point is the main reason I haven't upgraded.  I'm a techie, I like the latest and greatest toys and would love to have a smartphone but my sensible and maybe somewhat frugal mind always wins out.

Friday, August 17, 2012

Another Technology Dividend Stalwart In The Making?

Its typical for dividend paying stocks to start out as high-growth stocks that reinvest their earnings back into the company to fund future growth.  Over time, the growth slows and a company is left with a steady business that brings in a lot of cash. So instead of adding to the piles of cash they already have, they decide to start paying a dividend.  This is what is happening in the Technology Sector.  Intel (INTC) and Microsoft (MSFT) have been paying a dividend for about a decade.  Earlier this year Apple (AAPL) decided to join the party with its first dividend payment.  And just last year Cisco (CSCO) began giving back to its shareholders with a regular dividend.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Dividend Growth Analysis: McDonald's (MCD)

I've wanted to own stock in McDonald's (MCD) for quite some time.  When I first began following a dividend growth investment plan it was one of the last stocks I thought about buying, but I decided against it because I thought it was too expensive at the time.  Ever since then I've watched the stock and dividend go up. Recently thou, there has been a pullback in the stock price, and there's nothing a dividend growth investor likes more than a stock sale on a great dividend paying company.  Before I pull the trigger though, I need to see how MCD stacks up in my dividend growth analysis.  I was surprised to find that there were a couple of places where it misses the mark (just barely) but overall it's a hard buy to pass up at current prices  READ MORE

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TAGS: [MCD]

Monday, August 6, 2012

Stocks Providing Raises For Their Shareholders

Typically I've been posting (bragging) when a stock I own increases its dividend, but this doesn't give you an idea of how many companies out there that are also increasing their dividends.  So I'm going to attempt to do something about that.  I intend to make regular posts with a list of companies that recently increased their dividend. This list won't be a recommendation to buy, but based on information you see on a stock it may entice you to look deeper into a company.  I know looking at lists like these before has led me to buy stock in a particular company.

So hopefully here is the first of many posts like this.  I may tweak how or what data is displayed, but I will always list how much a company increased their dividend and what their current yield is.  And, as always, I will disclose at the bottom of these posts if I have a position in any of the stocks I list.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

The Secret to Successful Dividend Investing

Sorry, it's been a busy few weeks and my posting frequency has suffered.  I've got a few stocks lined up for analysis as I am overdue for another dividend growth analysis.  Hopefully things slow down soon, until then here's a post from the Motely Fool / MSNBC that makes a good point... don't chase yields, chase growth.

There are many lessons in investing that seem counterintuitive at first, only to become glaringly obvious in hindsight. While successful investors grasp this and go on to build fortunes, others don't, and thus miss out on the opportunity to live beyond their previously imagined means.  One such lesson concerns dividend stocks.

By now, it's common knowledge that dividend stocks generally beat their nondividend-paying brethren over the long term. My colleague Morgan Housel offered proof of this by showing that a $1,000 investment in the 10 S&P 500 companies with the highest dividend yields in 1957 would have been worth $1.3 million by 2006. Over the same time period, meanwhile, the same investment in the index overall would have amounted to only $176,000.  READ MORE